


United States v. Barnes, 617 F. Supp. 2d 143 (D.D.C. 2015)

by fallingvoices, radialarch



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Courtroom Drama, M/M, Social Media, media fic, mentions of Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-17 09:31:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2304905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallingvoices/pseuds/fallingvoices, https://archiveofourown.org/users/radialarch/pseuds/radialarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>The Associated Press</b> @AP<br/>Winter Soldier set to stand trial for Washington D.C. massacre and treason <span class="u">apne.ws/1og6SWE</span></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [United States v. Barnes, 617 F. Supp. 2d 143 (D.D.C. 2015)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7073383) by [Qwervbnm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qwervbnm/pseuds/Qwervbnm)



> Since neither of us is pursuing a career in law or law-related topics, you'll have to forgive the inaccuracies that can probably be found everywhere in this story. This is meant as a fic equivalent of a courtroom drama, with all the allowances for storytelling that it implies, not an accurate depiction of how this trial would go down if it actually took place.
> 
> Apologies to people whose (user)names we have inadvertently, or indeed purposefully stolen; all happenings in this story are fictional.
> 
> Thank you to Kora & the twitter crew for listening to us break down over writing this.

The Associated Press @AP  
Winter Soldier set to stand trial for Washington D.C. massacre and treason apne.ws/1og6SWE

The New York Times @nytimes  
Winter Soldier Trial Set for Early Next Week nyti.ms/1qSrmx7

 

·

 

Winter Soldier Trial strategies, complications

By Ashley Lin

The trial of the Winter Soldier is less than a week away, and rumors are that defense lawyer Michael Jones plans on submitting a not guilty plea. We talk with Harvard Law School professor Scott Brewer on his thoughts about the case.

**Q** : Let’s get straight to the big question: Do you think it’s possible that the Winter Soldier could be found not guilty?

**Brewer** : Well, this is an interesting case. From what I understand, the defense’s arguments are going to rest on lack of voluntariness. It’s actually an approach similar to an insanity plea — they acknowledge that he committed the killings, but they’re saying his actions lack the awareness and intent to make it a crime.

**Q** : Is there any kind of precedent that could guide the jury? 

**Brewer** : Sure, sure. If, as we’ve been told, the Winter Soldier was unaware of his own actions, then I think the closest analogue we have are sleepwalking murders. There are several cases in the literature of

sleepwalkers killing someone in their sleep, and being acquitted of the murder afterwards. The fact that the Winter Soldier voluntarily gave himself up for trial should help him in this situation; it’s a demonstration of his altered state of mind.

**Q** : But the killings — there were some very complex actions carried out by the Winter Soldier. Surely that required _some_ awareness of himself?

**Brewer** : And if that’s what the jury believes, the defense is going to have some problems. The other line of argument I could see would be some form of Stockholm Syndrome. The Patty Hearst case comes immediately to mind. Though she was initially convicted, she was later pardoned — it’s really going to depend on how much control the Winter Soldier had over his situation. Were his movements relatively unrestricted? Did he ever try to escape? All of these factors are going to paint a picture in the jury’s mind, that will determine whether they find him personally culpable.

READ MORE AT NEWSWEEK.COM

 

· 

 

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,

We are standing at a historic moment in time. Right now, right here, we have the chance to lay to rest the ghost of not one, not two, but more than sixty different victims of murder. Some of these men and women have been waiting for more than half a century for justice to be brought to them. And now, thanks to the recently released SHIELD files, we are in the unique position to do so.

The man sitting in front of you may not look dangerous, but do not be fooled. He is one of the most lethal assassins of our time. We have records, documents speaking of the Winter Soldier strangling Ronald Sinclair to death with his bare hands — of executing Barbara Williams and her ten-year old son as she pleaded with him kneeling on the floor of her bedroom. There will be more such stories throughout this trial. In the Winter Soldier, we have a man who betrayed his friends, his country — and his humanity.

It is up to you now to bring this man to justice. Do not forget about Ted Jackson, whose crime was nothing more than loving his country. Do not let down Nancy Roberts, who grew up without a mother and father thanks to this man. Listen to their stories, and do what you know in your heart is right: let the Winter Soldier be punished for all that he has done.

 

·

 

boy from brooklyn @rogerthat  
@carterings Are you in?

too good for you @carterings  
@rogerthat yeah i made it!!! 

too good for you @carterings  
@rogerthat damn, icu. nice seat

commando #8 @ahowling  
@rogerthat @carterings ws looks kind of sad w/o his arm, doesn’t he

shot first @flyingsolo  
In the courthouse for #WSTrial, it’s starting.

 

·

 

United States v. Barnes begins today

by Oscar Feldman

RICHMOND — It’s a perfect June day, but the crowd around me is waiting impatiently to get inside the courthouse located here in Virginia. Many of them will not make it inside for the trial of the Winter Soldier, the perpetrator of the massacre at Southeast Freeway and the Triskelion nearly two months ago that saw 32 people dead and hundreds more injured.

Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America, has been confirmed to be one of three heroes who fought against the Winter Soldier that day, saving dozens of lives; thus, it’s come as a surprise to some that he’s emerged as one of the staunchest supporters of the Soldier, even fiercely fighting the decision for him to stand trial.

“He’s suffered enough; he doesn’t need to go through this,” Mr. Rogers has said on record, prompting many to ask: what does he know about the Winter Soldier?

That question was answered earlier this week, when in a rare interview, Mr. Rogers confirmed a rumor that had spread through World War II enthusiast communities: the Winter Soldier is none other than his childhood friend, James Barnes. He also admitted that Mr. Barnes had been staying in Mr. Rogers’s Brooklyn apartment, though he himself had been living in D.C., and that Mr. Barnes had needed the time to “come back to himself.”

When he emerges from the back of a taxi, it’s immediately obvious that Mr. Barnes isn’t well. Though witnesses at Southeast Freeway have described the Winter Soldier as brutally fit, Mr. Barnes looks to have lost a substantial amount of weight. Of course, some of that is literal: one of the conditions for Mr. Barnes’s bail was the removal of his left arm, after the court decided the limb was more weapon than prosthetic. Without it, there’s a slight list to Mr. Barnes’s walk. 

Inside the courthouse, there’s immediately a commotion. Mr. Rogers had arrived by himself earlier, looking rather pale and unhappy — it appears that he’s disputing the confiscation of Mr. Barnes’s arm. “It’s his body, it’s a part of him!” he insists loudly, and only quiets after multiple warnings by Judge Suzanne Krill.

Opening statements by lead prosecutor Brian Coyle predictably mention the many violent murders attributed to Mr. Barnes, who merely sits quietly with his head bowed. In contrast, Mr. Rogers is visibly upset, shaking his head and mouthing “no” several times during Mr. Coyle’s more colorful statements. 

At the time of writing, the first witness is about to be called to the stand. 

READ MORE AT NYTIMES.COM

 

·

 

COYLE: Ms. Finebaum, was your grandfather Mr. Arthur Galloway?

FINEBAUM: Yes, that's correct.

COYLE: Is this your grandfather?

_[Exhibit #17.]_

FINEBAUM: Yes, that's him.

COYLE: Now, Ms. Finebaum, can you describe the events of the night between the 9th and the 10th of July, 1982?

FINEBAUM: My parents were in Chicago for the week — they were travel agents, they're retired now — so they left me in my grandfather's care, in his house in Ohio. My grandfather was widowed, so we spent all our time fishing in the river down in the hill. It was just the start of summer — like a vacation. I slept right at the top of the house, in a little garret, and it was kinda scary sometimes at night, so I'd come down to ask my grandfather for a glass of milk and a story. That night when I came down the stairs he wasn't — he wasn't in the living-room, so I went up to his door to see if he was awake. _[shaky breath]_ Well, he wasn't. He was — lying back — sideways on his bed, and there was blood all over the blankets. On the floor. It was. Dripping.

_[pause]_

COYLE: There was someone else in the room, wasn't there?

FINEBAUM: There was a man standing at the foot of the bed. He was dressed all in black, with a, with a mask over the lower half of his face. Long hair. I couldn't see his face. I was so scared, I was trying to hide behind the door. He wasn't moving, he was just ... staring down at my grandfather's body, like he was trying to puzzle it out. There was a knife in his hand, blood all over it. His — I remember one of his arms was silver. Gleaming. I couldn't understand it, at the time. It was so eerie — the room all golden and warm and just like it always was, and there in the middle there was this, this black figure standing still, stinking of blood. It was like a nightmare. I thought he was one of the monsters I was so scared about at night.

COYLE: Did he see you?

FINEBAUM: I hid. I hid behind the door for hours. I don't know how long I stayed there. When the sun came up, I could see it through the living-room window, so I peeked back into the bedroom. The man was gone, but my — my grandfather was still on the bed.

COYLE: Was there an investigation following your grandfather's murder?

FINEBAUM: Yes. My parents returned in a state, and the police came — I told them about the man I'd seen, but everything about him was so strange, so impossible, no one believed me. They thought it was a hallucination, that I had been so shocked by what I'd seen that I'd invented a fairytale to make sense of it. I saw psychiatrists, doctors, all the way through my teens. Eventually I ended up believing it.

COYLE: How old were you at the time?

FINEBAUM: Seven.

COYLE: What was the police's final ruling regarding your grandfather's death?

FINEBAUM: My grandfather worked for the Department of Defense for a bit in the seventies. Apparently he'd made some pretty shady deals, things that people would have wanted him to shut up about. I didn't know about it at the time, I was just a kid — but my parents told the police, and the investigation petered out after a while.

COYLE: Very good. Let's fast-forward to April this year. What happened on the 17th?

FINEBAUM: I was in the office, I work as a consultant to help companies with time management. My ex-husband called me and said, Turn on the TV! He was the only one apart from my parents and the police that I'd told about the man in the mask. He said, Naomie, turn on the TV right now, the man you told me about is fighting Captain America in D.C. And when I tuned in to CNN, there he was. He was exactly the same, even after twenty years.

COYLE: What did you think?

FINEBAUM: I didn't know what to think. I called my parents, I called Richard, I asked them if I should call the police, if it would do any good. And then two days later —

COYLE: Yes?

FINEBAUM: Rich called me again, said that SHIELD had dumped files all over the Web — that there were records. Of assassinations. That my grandfather's name was on one of them. Said he'd been killed by an agent called the Winter Soldier. The same man who'd been trying to kill Captain America. It was — it was a footnote. My grandfather's death, his life, that whole night, the worst night of my life, that was just worth a footnote in a file.

COYLE: My sympathies, Ms. Finebaum. I have no further questions, Your Honor.

 

·

 

COYLE: Ms. Lucas, can you tell the jury here about the events of December 9th, 1996? 

LUCAS: I went out to meet my sister and her husband for dinner. The restaurant was one of those open all night places, so we stayed on really late talking — they were just back from a work trip, I hadn't seen them in over a year. 

COYLE: Forgive me. How old were you at the time? 

LUCAS: Twenty-six. My sister was seven years older than me. 

COYLE: What was your sister's profession? 

LUCAS: She was a neurologist. They'd founded their cabinet together. I think they — they would never really talk much about it, Anne always said they had to sign non-disclosure agreements all the time — but some of their clients were really illustrious people. Celebrities, politicians, that kind of thing. Usually when they left the States for work they'd at least tell me which country they were going to go, but this time they couldn't even tell me anything. 

COYLE: Thank you. You had dinner with them. What happened after that? 

LUCAS: We realized that it was already past two in the morning. Well, we'd gotten there in two different cars, but my apartment was being fumigated, so I was supposed to spend the night at their place. Their car was a new one, they'd just bought it with the money from their work trip, and, ah — well, they were really proud of it. [hesitating] It was late at night. There was no one in the street. It was only a little gamble —

COYLE: That's quite all right. No one will judge you in this courtroom. 

LUCAS: We thought we'd have a race. Nothing dangerous, just — which of our cars would get to the intersection first. A straight line. No one would have gotten hurt. No one should have gotten hurt — _[voice breaks]_

_[pause]_

COYLE: I'm very sorry to make you relive those painful memories, Ms. Lucas. Please continue whenever you're feeling ready —

LUCAS: Yes. _[recovering]_ Sorry. Yes. Well, their car, it was fast, but it was new, and my — my sister was a bit drunk. Tipsy, really. So I pulled up ahead of them. And I, I was just coming to the crossroads when I saw —

COYLE: Yes?

LUCAS: I saw a man standing there in the middle of the street. It was so dark, I could barely see him. I thought — at the time I didn't think about it clearly, but I thought his left arm was, was shining. Metal. He didn't move. I was coming straight at him, and he just … stayed there. And then he lifted his arm, and I saw the gun. _[shakes head]_ It was too big to be a gun, it was probably a rifle or something, but my brain screamed, Gun! so I hit the brakes. My car veered off — I don't — I don't really remember much after that. I just remember how hot the explosion was, when I saw it in the rearview mirror. Afterwards they told me that it had hit my car too, that it did a cartwheel in the street and skidded into the sidewalk, but I don't remember that. The next thing I knew, I was in the hospital with two of my ribs fractured and a broken nose and my mother in the room, telling me that my — my sister and her husband hadn't made it. _[tearfully]_ I've just kept wondering, if I hadn't slowed down right then, if my car would have been the one that got hit. 

COYLE: Ms. Lucas, was the man you saw the Winter Soldier? 

LUCAS: I think it must have been. He looked like him, and everything that's come out about the first assassination attempt on the head of SHIELD —

COYLE: Director Fury. Who's now deceased. 

LUCAS: Yes — that was exactly the same thing. All the eyewitnesses said the Winter Soldier just stood there in the street and let the car come at him and then blew it up. 

COYLE: Thanks very much. No more questions, your Honor. 

KRILL: Mr. Jones. 

JONES: Thank you, Your Honor. Ms. Lucas, I'm very sorry that you had to endure such a traumatic experience. You've just said that, um ... some things from that evening are somewhat blurry in your memory. Is that correct? 

LUCAS: Well —

JONES: It would be perfectly understandable, Ms. Lucas. After all, it must have been a terrible night, and it has been nearly twenty years. No one is expecting you to remember everything in perfect detail. 

LUCAS: I suppose so. 

JONES: Could you swear that the man you saw that night, the man who killed your sister and her husband — could you swear beyond a shadow of a doubt that that man is the man now sitting in the dock? 

LUCAS: I think it was the Winter Soldier, yes. 

JONES: Yes. But was it the man sitting the dock, right now? 

COYLE: Objection, Your Honor — I hope the defense is not planning on arguing that this man is not the Winter Soldier? 

JONES: Your Honor, I assure you that is not what we are planning on doing. Since the accused has turned himself in, I'm sure that would be an absurd line of reasoning. 

KRILL: I'll allow it. Please answer the question, Ms. Lucas. 

LUCAS: I couldn't swear to it, exactly. 

JONES: Why not? What's different about him? 

LUCAS: He's not, he's not standing the same way. The man I saw didn't hesitate for a second. He didn't move at all, except for the arm. He didn't even look human, he didn't look real. 

JONES: Does the man in the dock look human now? 

_[scattered laughter]_

LUCAS [hesitating]: I guess.

JONES: Thank you.

 

·

 

 **To** : husbandof.theboss@starkindustries.com  
 **From** : vYW77PKSdB@stealthmail.com  
 **Subject** : the trial

Tony,

I have it on good authority they’re planning to ask you to testify against Barnes at the trial. Steve says he trusts you to do the right thing, but we both know Steve’s an idiot.

I’m sorry about your parents, for what that’s worth. I wish they hadn’t died like this. Look: you could go in right now and tell them that Barnes killed your parents. You have every right to. But I’d consider it a personal favor if you looked at some of these files first.

attached: _rm8oxm3.zip, yvrocjx.zip, r926jhh.zip_

 

·

 

To: Nat [09:13]  
Think he’ll do it?

From: Nat [09:15]  
Who knows. How’s Steve?

To: Nat [09:16]  
Bad. Barnes not much better. They’re laying it on thick

From: Nat [09:20]  
Send me a picture

To: Nat [09:25]  
I’m in court. 

From: Nat [09:26]  
Figure something out :))

 

·

 

COYLE: Mr. Yuan, what is your job?

YUAN: I’m a data analyst for the National Security Agency.

COYLE: What does that mean, exactly?

YUAN: Well, the SHIELD file breech left us in a bit of a bind. Right now, everyone’s busy trying to figure out if anything in there is going to be a threat to national security, and how to best prevent it.

COYLE: Will you tell us how that process works?

YUAN: There are millions of files out there, we can’t scan every one by hand. So what we do is we develop searching algorithms — what kinds of keywords might occur close together, what groups of words match government code words, things like that.

COYLE: I see. Now, I understand that it was you who found this document.

_[Exhibit #45.]_

YUAN: Yes.

COYLE: How did it come to your attention?

YUAN: To be honest, it was a side project. The agency right now is more focused on what’s going to happen than what’s already happened, but I’d always had a bit of interest in American history. So I’d set up an alert, trying to see if I could find any Hydra influence on certain historical events. A couple days later, this popped up.

COYLE: Will you read to the court the section that triggered your, your search?

YUAN: _Asset to 32.78° N, 96.81° W._

COYLE: And for those of us not familiar with those coordinates…

YUAN: Those are the coordinates to Dallas, Texas. That, combined with the fact that the document was dated November 1963, registered a hit.

_[murmurs]_

COYLE: Mr. Yuan, please tell the court what your reaction was upon seeing this document.

YUAN: None of this is conclusive, of course. But my first thought was, oh my god, the Winter Soldier killed President Kennedy.

_[commotion]_

KRILL. Order, please!

COYLE: And upon examining the document more closely, did you find anything to contradict your first impression?

YUAN: Not really, no. The Hydra documents have consistently referred to the Winter Soldier as “the Asset” or just “Asset” throughout. The target — noted as a level 9A, which is quite high — was recorded as successfully eliminated. And, interestingly enough, the mission is noted to have suffered one casualty. We are all, I hope, familiar with Jack Ruby’s shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald a few days after the assassination...

_[murmurs]_

COYLE: So in your opinion, can we conclude —

YUAN: I hesitate to use the word “conclude”, as this is still just a conjecture. But I’d say that there is a high probability that the Winter Soldier was responsible for the death of JFK.

_[uproar]_

COYLE: No further questions, your Honor.

 

· 

 

too good for you @carterings  
winter soldier killed jfk what the fuck what. the. fuck.

shot first @flyingsolo  
JFK just another one of WS’s countless victims #WSTrial

 

·

 

Reuters Top News @reuters  
BREAKING: Winter Soldier may have been involved in killing of JFK reut.rs/1pAlsKi

NBC News @NBCNews  
The Winter Soldier and JFK: Hydra’s strategy of destabilization nbcnews.to/XdeAX9

Fox News @FoxNews  
After #JFK, Who Was Next? fxn.ws/1a3Q4Wr

 

·

 

COYLE: Mr. Stark. Tell us about how your parents died.

STARK: For the longest time, I thought — I thought they died in a car accident. Turns out that was wrong. Now they’re telling me that somebody killed them.

COYLE: And can you tell us if that somebody is in this room?

STARK: You know, about eight years ago, I was in Afghanistan — long story short, I was captured. Some of you might remember, it was on the news.

_[quiet laughter]_

STARK: They told me they wanted — they told me to build a missile for them. And — I’ve never told anyone this, this is how you know I’m serious — they put my head in water. Wouldn’t let me get back up.

COYLE: Mr. Stark.

STARK: Very effective method of torture, I’ll tell you. Because it took me less than five minutes to say yes. _[He clears his throat.]_ And there are tapes on the web now. We know what they did to — to Barnes. Hello, by the way, I don’t think we’ve met. _[He nods at the defendant.]_ So my answer is no. My parents’ murderer might be dead, might be sitting in this room — I’m still trying to figure that out — but he is not the man standing trial.

_[uproar]_

KRILL: Order! Order, please!

STARK: You’re welcome, Capsicle.

 

·

 

too good for you @carterings  
did tstark just turn on the prosecution #wstrial

boy from brooklyn @rogerthat  
He was tortured in Afghanistan oh my god #TonyStark #hero

shot first @flyingsolo  
As usual Tony Stark fucks over his country #WSTrial

 

·

 

From: Bruce-o [15:29]  
Watching with Pepper. We’re so proud of you.

 

From: Cap [15:31]  
Tony. Thank you.

 

·

 

 **To** : vYW77PKSdB@stealthmail.com  
 **From** : husbandof.theboss@starkindustries.com  
 **Subject** : Re: the trial

You know, I’m actually kind of offended that you thought I’d need help doing the right thing. I’m a hero, they literally have costumes of me.

P.S. You still owe me one. 

 

·

 

JONES: Ladies and gentlemen, the prosecution has been very thorough in detailing the crimes attributed to the Winter Soldier. _Very_ thorough. The evidence I want to show you now might be a little gruesome, too. I hope you'll be able to follow without too much distraction. This photograph was part of a file dating from 1976, which Captain Rogers has been kind enough to deliver to the defense so that we might enter it into evidence. In it was the oldest picture we have found of James Barnes post-1945.

_[Exhibit #5. James Barnes sitting on the floor behind the metal bars of a cell, with a beard of about a month's growth. His left arm is missing up to his shoulder and his shirt in rags, showing skin. He is glaring at the camera, jaw set.]_

JONES: This photograph is dated June 1946, eighteen months after Sergeant Barnes fell off a train and was recorded missing in action. As you can see, at that time, he hadn't been fitted with a mechanical prothesis. We believe that he hadn't yet been subjected to cryogenic suspension, either. At any rate, we haven't been able to find any records of his being put under ice until 1947. With respect to his arm, we've been able to recover a number of blueprints detailing the progress made over the decades —

_[Exhibits #76 through #82. Various schematics of a metal arm in different models.]_

JONES: As well as the progression of the physical modifications this evolution wrought on Sergeant Barnes' body. This picture is dated late 1946 —

_[Exhibit #55. A close-up of a left arm's stump, only showing up to the collarbone. The skin is badly burnt and flayed. The flesh of the stump is raw and wet.]_

JONES: Whereas this one is the most recent one we have, taken with Sergeant Barnes' cooperation by a court-approved specialist only a month ago.

_[Exhibit #56. The same shoulder, but part of the stump has been sawed off further. The skin is heavily scarred and punctured with metal hooks.]_

JONES: Now, I don't know about you, ladies and gentlemen, but I don't know many men who would willingly subject themselves to that kind of bodily scarring and constant recurring pain. Nor to the kind of imprisonment that these photographs depict —

_[Exhibits #23 through #27. Barnes in the same cell, in various positions: sitting against the wall; sleeping with his back turned to the camera; holding onto the bars and looking away.]_

JONES: Or to this.

_[Exhibit #30. Barnes naked against a brick wall, hosed with a heavy jet of water.]_

_[pause]_

JONES [heavily]: Now, the man operating on Sergeant Barnes in this next picture is well-known to SHIELD. His name is Arnim Zola. He was a scientist for the tech division of Hydra during World War Two, and worked directly under the orders of Johann Schmidt, better known as the Red Skull. We know that Sergeant Barnes’ unit was captured by Hydra in 1943, and was, happily, delivered by Captain Rogers in October of that year. What is less known is that Zola experimented on a number of Allied soldiers in the base raided by Captain Rogers, including Barnes himself. We believe that it is Zola's testing that allowed Barnes to survive that fall into the Alps. And, it appears, he recovered Barnes' body from raiding Hydra soldiers a few weeks after he was offered a deal by the United States Army — that is to say, a deal to be let free in exchange for information on Schmidt — and was able to resume his experiments on him.

_[Exhibit #21: A short man with round eyeglasses is operating on Barnes' body, visibly assembling parts of a mechanical limb. Barnes' skin is shiny with sweat, and he appears unconscious.]_

JONES: What you must understand is that by the time Zola was pardoned in 1951 and recruited into SHIELD, where he would set about painstakingly rebuilding Hydra, few records remained of his experiments on Sergeant Barnes. It is unclear exactly how far he had come in torturing him. However, we have recovered a few pages from what has been ascertained to be one of Zola's own notebooks, which we can now reveal to you.

_[Exhibits #22, #23, #24. Three yellowed pages scribbled over in German.]_

JONES: Your Honor, this is the transcript. The prosecution has been kind enough to let their very own specialist supervise its translation. Would you mind reading the fourth paragraph from the bottom?

KRILL: _“18/09/46: Finally told #99a76 about Rogers' death this afternoon. After initially violent feedback, #99a76 responded very positively. Didn't thrash when put underwater and didn't react to physical pain in any way whatsoever. Extremely encouraging. Believe compound may be increased to better effect.”_

_[In the audience, Steve Rogers looks distressed.]_

JONES: Thank you very much, Your Honor. From various other notes of Zola's, we have concluded that the compound he mentions is a derived solution of the Erskine Rebirth serum, and was meant to allow Sergeant Barnes to be put under cryogenic suspension while limiting the damage to his internal organs and his brain. This compound is presumed to have been perfected, or at least deemed workable, in 1947.

_[Exhibit #29. An enlarged close-up of Barnes' face under ice.]_

JONES: As you can see in this picture, Sergeant Barnes was first frozen in 1947, while Zola was rebuilding his contacts and his influence both stateside and across the Atlantic. Zola himself was recruited with a team of German scientists into SHIELD in 1951, as part of what was later termed Project Paperclip. In 1952, SHIELD records show an exchange of goods between one of Zola's direct subordinates and an auxiliary to a now defunct agency based in St. Petersburg — while it appears that this exchange was composed primarily of classified information, it matches with the Kiev file recovered by Captain Rogers, which registers the arrival of a medically-assisted cryogenic chamber. There, Sergeant Barnes underwent years of torture, conditioning, brainwashing, and physical as well as mental abuse. For a time he appears to have been kept in solitary confinement — those records show that he was hardly allowed anything to eat, and was only granted more than one discontinued hour of sleep every day. At irregular intervals he was taken away for _monitoring_ — which appears to have consisted of extremely debilitating physical training and thorough mental indoctrination. Several reports indicate that they tested his various thresholds of pain; he was _repeatedly_ stabbed, shot, lacerated, flayed, cut open, operated on without anesthetic, and wounded in such ways that would doubtlessly have been fatal to an average human being. Most of the bones in his body were broken at some point or other. Some were left to heal without outside assistance. In other cases, he was injected with emulsive variants on Zola's original compound to try and modify his healing capacities and his resistance — his outward resistance, I should say — to pain.

_[pause]_

JONES: Most of these records do not refer to their subject as a human being in any perceptible manner. The audio files you will listen to in a moment are evidence enough to the fact that the technicians and clinicians who worked within the Winter Soldier program never addressed him to his face as anything other than as a weapon. As you'll see, they used some very precise vocabulary. It appears that from the mid-50s through to the mid-60s, their favorite threat before putting him under in the cryogenic casket was to remind him that lack of cooperation upon waking would lead to immediate termination.

_[Barnes sitting with his head bowed, looking down at his hand.]_

JONES: Ladies and gentlemen, what will follow are over sixty different slides — pictures, sketches, schedules, documents both handwritten and typewritten, recorded interviews, archived files — detailing only a fraction of the trauma suffered by James Barnes between 1952 and 1970. Most of these are absolutely revolting, and those among the audience who may become distressed at the sight of gore might want to leave the courtroom for the next — maybe an hour or so. Thank you. You may dim the lights.

 

·

 

too good for you @carterings  
fuck

commando #8 @ahowling  
fuck fuck FUCK

boy from brooklyn @rogerthat  
@carterings @ahowling im gonna be sick

commando #8 @ahowling  
@carterings @rogerthat HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN WITHOUT ANYONE KNOWING

commando #8 @ahowling  
@carterings @rogerthat WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING THAT WE DON'T KNOW ABOUT

too good for you @carterings  
ws's face is. god.

boy from brooklyn @rogerthat  
i cant believe this is happening.

boy from brooklyn @rogerthat  
is ANYONE going to stop the video? Cap looks like he's gonna break down.

too good for you @carterings  
they had him on a fucking drip. they were PUMPING DRUGS INTO HIM. jesus christ.

commando #8 @ahowling  
torture tapes so nauseating jury members are actively looking away #wstrial

boy from brooklyn @rogerthat  
@ahowling fuckers.

commando #8 @ahowling  
@rogerthat no i think they're legit appalled

too good for you @carterings  
i'll say it. #acquithim

too good for you @carterings  
WS is a victim not a murderer #wstrial #acquithim

 

·

 

ROGERS: Turn it off — Michael, turn it _off. Turn it off now._

KRILL: Captain Rogers! Calm down, sir—

JONES: That's all right, Your Honor. Bring up the lights, please. I believe this point has been well made. Ladies and gentlemen, by the late '50s or early '60s the Winter Soldier was a functional agent in the field — strong, precise, ruthless, leaving little more than questions in his trail. SHIELD itself was mystified. Many did not believe in his existence. In that time, the number of deaths registered to the Winter Soldier amounts to twelve, all of whom were single targets across the world. In 1972, however, Arnim Zola received a terminal diagnosis. Presumably anxious to regain control of what he considered one of his greatest successes, he retrieved the Soldier — in Zola's notes he is alluded to only as the Asset or #99a76 — and had him shipped back to the United States under Hydra's direct command. Zola died, apparently, in 1973, but from that point onward the hits assigned to the Winter Soldier became increasingly more dire, and were entirely focused on home. This also meant adjusting the kind of conditioning he was put under. In 1981, the Winter Soldier was ordered to burn down an orphanage full of children. The mission was reported as incomplete. This audio file is a record of the interrogation that directly followed that report.

> #1 [female voice, 40s to 50s.]: Your assignment was to burn down the Shelby orphanage, in Denver. To make it look like an accident. You did not complete the mission. You will be sent out to complete it.  
>  #2 [male voice, 20s to 30s, distinctly recognizable as Barnes'.]: Why?  
>  #1: You are the brightest star of your generation. Hydra needs you to do this. Hydra needs you to follow orders. You'll help us better the world.  
>  #2: What did they do?  
>  #1 [sigh]: They're the children of traitors. Their parents were traitors before them. They will grow up a cancer in the body of our world —  
>  #2: It's not —  
>  #3 [male voice, nondescript]: Whoa, is he —  
>  #4 [male voice, nondescript]: Hey, watch ou—  
>  #1: Stand down. [softly] Soldier, you cannot think of them as children. They're not children. They're not human. They are our enemies. Do you understand?  
>  #2: But —  
>  #1: They will destroy us. Do you want that to happen?  
>  #2 [quietly]: No.  
>  #1: Good.

 

·

 

Amand W @AmWyman  
Oh no you burned some kids alive :( but you felt conflicted about it :( OH WELL THAT'S ALRIGHT THEN #WStrial

Amand W @AmWyman  
Really? #WStrial

shot first @flyingsolo  
The defense has no leg to stand on, hence all the emotional manipulation #standstrong #noacquittal

Fox News @FoxNews  
How much of the #WSTrial evidence can we really trust? fxn.ws/1oQmXwf

 

·

 

JONES: Please state your full name for the record.

CRONIN: Dr. Benjamin Cronin.

JONES: Have you had the defendant under your medical care?

CRONIN: Yes. Many times.

JONES: And what, if any, was your role in treating him?

CRONIN: I — that is, with a team...

JONES: Go on.

CRONIN: I supervised his medicine intake throughout treatment.

JONES: Now, we’ve previously established that the Sergeant Barnes had been given a form of what is now known as the supersoldier serum. In fact, he can heal extraordinarily quickly. So what treatment did he need, that he had to undergo “many times”?

CRONIN: Electroshock — well, I guess they call it electroconvulsive therapy now.

JONES: And is that what it sounds like? Electric shocks?

CRONIN [hesitantly]: Well. There’s a machine —

JONES: This machine, in fact.

_[Exhibit #37. Photo of the chair. Sergeant Barnes flinches.]_

CRONIN: Yes. It’s designed to send an electric current through your brain.

JONES: Like this.

_[Exhibit #38. Video. Screaming.]_

CRONIN: Yes.

JONES: You said that you supervised his medication intake. What kind of medication did you give him?

CRONIN: It was a mixture of benzodiazepines. They were designed to keep the Winter Soldier from reacting violently to the therapy.

JONES: Did he? React violently, otherwise.

CRONIN: Yes. He — he was afraid of the machine.

JONES: I see. _[pause]_ And what purpose did this ... therapy serve?

CRONIN: It, it had an effect on his memory —

JONES: What kind of effect?

CRONIN: It would make him forget.

JONES: We all forget things, doctor. What kind of things did you want _him_ to forget?

CRONIN: Every — everything. His past. His other missions, sometimes. His name ... Everything that we didn’t teach him.

JONES: “We” being Hydra.

CRONIN: Yes.

JONES: So when he had gone through this ... treatment, in your _medical_ opinion, was this man — was Sergeant Barnes capable of complex moral judgments? If told to kill a man, could he judge that the action was wrong?

CRONIN: No.

_[murmurs.]_

JONES: This is not, ladies and gentlemen, how you treat a man who is a valued member of an agency; this is how you store a weapon. _[looks intently at the jury]_ No more questions.

 

·

 

Wall Street Journal @WSJ  
James Barnes: Enemy of the State or a Prisoner of War? on.wsj.com/1yW9PHf

 

·

 

Retweeted by The New York Times  
NYT Science @nytimesscience  
Effects of benzodiazepines on the human brain nyti.ms/1q97sMX

 

·

 

Peggy Carter: On Shield, Steve Rogers, and the Winter Soldier Trial

by Andrew Vaughn

While the country's attention is focused on a small courthouse in Virginia, here, in this retired home on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., everything is very quiet and calm. The volume is muted on the television that's mounted on the wall. Peggy Carter welcomes me from a cozy armchair by the open french doors, and apologizes for not getting up. "My knees aren't quite what they used to be," she tells me with a dry laugh. Looking at her now, it's difficult to imagine that this frail old lady was once one of the most lethal secret agents in this country, or that she and weapons manufacturer Howard Stark co-founded SHIELD in the aftermath of WWII. Carter retired in 2003 for health reasons, and though rumors went round in the following years, no one has ever quite been able to know what afflicted her, though many speculated it might be cancer, a brain tumor, or Alzheimer's disease.

Today, she seems quite lucid, if tired. Though her voice is a little weak, when she speaks, it's easy to see what brought a number of politicians all across the world, two generations of Starks, and Captain America himself to their knees before her.

I ask her about SHIELD and its destruction. Her reply, though self-possessed, is full of emotion.

"I worked for SHIELD for almost sixty years. I watched and helped it grow. We founded SHIELD with the best of intentions, with the purpose to do right by this country. Today, knowing that a parasite was growing inside of SHIELD all along — that SHIELD itself had become one of the parasites eating at this country's integrity — knowing that our intentions failed to create what they should have created, but instead fomented fear and hatred and torture — it's one of the most painful things I could have imagined living. Somehow, I — who was close to the innermost workings of the agency — was blind to the contagion growing inside it, and Steve, who has only just come back, was able to see what I couldn't. He was able to make the right choice, which I might not have."

She has nothing but kind words for Steve Rogers. "He was then, and still is now, one of the best men I know," she says, her gaze slipping away out the window. "He has always sought to do the right thing, though not necessarily within the rules of the game."

Rogers, of course, is meant to be testifying in court in defense of James Barnes tomorrow. When I ask her about Barnes, Carter's features soften perceptibly. "I feel responsible, you know. Somehow, I think I should have understood earlier. The Winter Soldier was a ghost in our files, too, but I believe I caught glimpses of him from time to time — a serial number that kept cropping up, funds that disappeared into projects that had been dumped. Elusive, of course. Nothing that could be traced down. But Howard knew something; he'd figured some of it out. I only wish I had, too." She falls silent, looking pained. I wonder what she feels most guilty about: Barnes' imprisonment, or Howard Stark's death.

After a few minutes, I ask her what Barnes was like in 1944. Her face clears.

"Do you know, by the end of it all, I believe we were — not quite friends. Allies. We had —" She laughs. "— common interests. We both knew Steve had to be protected at any cost. So Barnes kept an eye on him in the field, made sure he was safe, and I kept a tight lid on things in London, where the higher-ups would have liked being able to control the Commandos's range of action. Captain America was as much of a boon as he was a threat to them, and Barnes was aware of that. He was devoted to Steve, and loyal to a fault. We all were, really."

She tells me that she was originally asked to testify for the defense, only for the prosecution to rule her out on account of her illness. "You don't know what it's like, to forget things," she tells me. "You think you do, but you don't know. Sometimes I look at a stranger who's trying to convince me to drink some water, I look away, and when I look back my grandson was sitting there all along." Her grandson, of course, is Michael Jones, attorney for the defense. This is why, she tells me, she has agreed to this interview, today, for the first time in a decade. "If they shut me out, I can make myself heard. Barnes has been deprived of a voice for the past seventy years. The least we can do is lend him our own. Unfortunately, it might be all that we can do."

She does not appear optimistic as to the outcome of the trial. "It's a farce. A monkey trial. They're using him as a scapegoat: the more sensational it'll get, the easier they'll be able to rally public opinion to their side. It should never have come this far — it should have gone into private hearings, not a public jury. But convicting the Winter Soldier means foisting the blame off on one man instead of convicting those really culpable — not just Alexander Pierce and the members of Hydra under his command, but SHIELD itself; and all of us. America is very good at making itself unaccountable."

"Don't you think the defense can turn public opinion around?" I ask. She looks thoughtful.

"Perhaps. Of course, the defense's main contention relies on a very delicate balance — they have to make sure the jury will make a difference between Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier. The question at the core of it is not whether the Winter Soldier committed these crimes, as there is overwhelming evidence to prove this, and Barnes is not denying them. The question is whether Sergeant Barnes did them, with full knowledge of his actions and absolute intent to carry them out. Thankfully, the prosecution will have a sorry job proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that Barnes was actively complicit with Hydra. And that's what it comes down to — if there is even a single person on that jury who can be convinced by the defense, the whole trial might veer in our favor."

READ MORE AT WASHINGTONPOST.COM

 

·

 

short stripes @flightrisk  
carter interview v moving, but...

too good for you @carterings  
peggy carter forever my hero #wstrial

boy from brooklyn @rogerthat  
the question is “not whether the Winter Soldier committed these crimes… but whether Sergeant Barnes did” oh my god

commando #8 @ahowling  
@rogerthat she’s so right tho #jbbisnotws

too good for you @carterings  
SPREAD THIS LIKE FIRE #JBBisnotWS #jbbtrial


	2. Chapter 2

_"… second day of testimonies in the_ United States v. Barnes _hearings, which have now been infamously dubbed the Winter Soldier Trial. James 'Bucky' Barnes, born 1917, was known until earlier this year only as Captain America's best friend and closest associate during World War Two, and was reported missing in action in late 1945, mere days before Captain Rogers' well-recorded dive into the Arctic. After the shootings at the Southeast Freeway in DC on April 17th this year and the subsequent massacre at the Triskelion monument a day later, the lone fighter who was reportedly seen fighting Captain America was identified in the colossal online disposal of SHIELD files as the Winter Soldier, a legendary sniper working for terrorist organization Hydra. However, it was only a few weeks ago, months after the arrest was made, that he was revealed to be Barnes — who is alleged to have suffered or be suffering from memory loss. We now go to our special correspondent outside of the courthouse, where hordes of breathless onlookers are currently awaiting the arrival of the key witnesses and the opening of the doors — what's the mood like over there, Michael?"_

_"Ab-so-lu-te-ly wired, Shauna — as you can see, there are more people here than the hall can really carry — and our reports show that there are more coming in by the minute. Of course, yesterday's revelations regarding President Kennedy’s assassination and the torture James Barnes was subjected to as a prisoner of war have thrown a spanner into what originally looked to be a fairly straightforward case — and everybody seems to have something to say. There are some very passionate people down here and they all have very strong opinions as to what should be done with the Winter Soldier."_

“Yeah, we came all the way out from Austin to attend this trial!”

“And what do you believe should happen to the Winter Soldier?”

“Put a bullet in his brain and be done with it, he’s done enough damage.”

“Yeah, we’re students at Chapel Hill? We came up here to show support for Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes...”

“So you believe that the Winter Soldier should be acquitted?”

“Um, yeah. The man’s been tortured, he’s been used — it’s horrific, and this trial’s only an extension of that.”

_"So — yes, you see, Shauna, opinions here are mixed and can become extremely heated — and are sure to increase in intensity as the hearings proceed. Among the witnesses who will be called to the stand today are two previous Howling Commandos, the Black Widow, and Captain America himself. Depending on the promptness of the proceedings we may even get a verdict no later than tomorr— what's this? Shauna, it would appear that Captain America has just arrived — yes, here he is, Steve Rogers, flanked by his associates Natasha Romanov and Sam Wilson, who were with him on the day the Triskelion was destroyed. Both of them are called to testify today … Captain Rogers, a word for ABC news — can you tell us anything about the allegations made yesterday about the Winter Soldier's possible kill of — ah — no, Shauna, he wouldn't stop; he really looked incredibly tired, I would wager that this trial is taking its toll even on Captain America …"_

 

·

 

Frank Wolf @callmesuperman  
There are almost a thousand people waiting out here #atthecourthouse #wstrial

Frank Wolf @callmesuperman  
#atthecourthouse From top of the staircase: instagram.com/p/t9kz73firl

Frank Wolf @callmesuperman  
WS to arrive heavily guarded through backdoor for fear of a mob #wstrial #atthecourthouse

 

·

 

COYLE: You were one of the doctors who admitted Captain Rogers here into overnight care on the evening of April 18th, earlier this year.

EADARA: I was.

COYLE: Was Captain Rogers conscious and aware of his surroundings at the time?

EADARA: He awakened briefly during the ambulance drive to the hospital, which I was not present for. At the time he arrived on my surgical table, he was unconscious.

COYLE: What was the extent of his injuries?

EADARA: Well, you must remember that Captain Rogers has highly advanced healing capacities. By the time we were operating on him, the bullets that had been put into his body were already being, quite literally, pushed out of him by reconstituting muscle and skin tissue.

COYLE: Forgive me — how many bullets were there?

EADARA: Three. He was shot once in the flank, once in the left leg and once right through the back, only narrowly avoiding his spine.

COYLE: Very good. Please continue.

EADARA: His face was very heavily beaten — he had one black eye and the beginning of another, his lips were split in two different places, his left cheekbone was shattered, and his nose had evidently bled excessively. He also suffered from a fractured eardrum on the left side, and two of his ribs were broken. Another was cracked. Two of his fingers on his left hand were fractured in several places.

COYLE: In your medical opinion, would an average man, without Captain Rogers' remarkable reparative capacities, have survived such extensive wounds?

EADARA: I very much doubt it. The bullets alone should have sufficed. If they hadn't, the blood loss should have killed him. Captain Rogers, it would appear, combines strong self-preservative instincts and the physical ability to act out on them with respect to the circumstances — where an average man would not have been able to produce enough blood to counteract the loss of it, Captain Rogers' body was capable of manufacturing incredible amounts of blood in order to keep his brain and organs functioning.

COYLE: Would you say that Captain Rogers heals extremely fast?

EADARA: I would.

COYLE: How fast?

EADARA: I can't make a definite pronouncement. Since Captain Rogers checked himself out the very next afternoon, I was unable to assess the speed of the healing process. However, I visited his room to check on his condition a few hours after surgery, and the effect was already remarkable — the worst of bruising about the eyes had already receded, and the mass tissue around the bullet wounds had already begun to knit back together. When Captain Rogers made a televised appearance a couple of weeks later in New York, he appeared to be walking and moving around normally, which a man with two broken ribs and three bullet wounds would not have been able to do within the span of a fortnight.

COYLE: Could we deduce from this that his injuries were a great deal more extensive at the time they were made?

EADARA: Oh, undoubtedly. They didn't find him right away, you know, and by the time the hospital was called and the ambulance returned with him it was already two hours and a half since the Triskelion was destroyed. His body had already begun the healing process.

COYLE: With respect to that process, do you believe it would have been sufficient to keep Captain Rogers alive if he had not been brought to hospital?

EADARA: I believe it could have gone either way.

COYLE: I see. Is there any way any of these injuries could have been inflicted accidentally?

EADARA: I don't see how that could be, no. Even apart from the bullet holes, which were precisely placed, the beating of the face indicates very clear intent.

COYLE: Intent to do what?

EADARA: To kill, presumably. That kind of focus above the neck may indicate a wish to destroy any recognizable features — to deface, literally, until identification is made impossible.

COYLE: Thank you very much, sir. No further questions, Your Honor.

KRILL: Mr Jones.

JONES: Thank you, Your Honor. Dr. Eadara, how much does Captain Rogers weigh?

EADARA: I'm sorry?

JONES: How much does Captain Rogers weigh? You admitted him into hospital care; you must have weighed him.

EADARA: I'm afraid I can't remember the exact figure.

JONES: Make an educated guess.

EADARA [flustered]: At a glance, I would say — maybe 230 lbs, 240 lbs.

JONES: Captain Rogers, is that accurate? More or less accurate?

_[Steven Rogers nods.]_

JONES: More or less accurate. Dr. Eadara, how fast is a man who weighs 240 lbs and is as heavily injured as you've described him to be likely to lose consciousness and drown in a river like the Potomac? A river, I should mention, wherein at that very moment the debris of not one, not two, but _three_ helicarriers were falling, making it very likely that he should be hit on the way down?

EADARA: I don't believe that I am in a capacity to say how fast a man who has been altered — genetically, I should say, genetically altered as Captain Rogers has — may lose consciousness.

JONES: But you were in a capacity to say that his injuries were near-fatal, _despite_ not having in-depth knowledge as to his genetic baggage.

EADARA: I —

JONES: You said it just now.

EADARA: I did. Yes, I did.

JONES: Make another educated guess. Would you suppose that Captain Rogers — as heavily injured as you have described him to be, just a minute ago — that Captain Rogers would be capable of dragging himself to the surface of the Potomac and onto the shore to safety by his own means?

EADARA: That would not be very likely.

JONES: No. Very good. Now, please consider that Captain Rogers fell into the river quite a ways off from the shore — a quarter of a mile or so. During the next few hours, all boats in the vicinity of the Triskelion were employed in fishing out survivors and corpses from the water. None of them reported having even _seen_ Captain Rogers' unconscious body, which was, in fact, found on the waterfront about three quarters of an hour after the carriers first began to fall apart. No one has come forward to claim the rescue. These are only the facts contained in this report, sir. Dr. Eadara, please consider that Captain Rogers weighs _more or less_ 240 lbs and was heavily armored. He was also dead weight. Could a man of average strength, without a boat or any means of transportation, have rescued that unconscious body from the depths of the Potomac river and swum it back to shore half a mile away, in the appropriate amount of time for Captain Rogers to be able to survive this little bath?

EADARA: I couldn't presume to say.

JONES: Please presume.

EADARA: I wouldn't think it likely.

JONES: Why not?

EADARA: It would — it would require a great deal of strength.

JONES: Greater than average bodily strength?

EADARA: Much greater.

JONES: You and I may conclude, then, that the person who rescued Captain Rogers must not only have seen him fall, but also must have had the exceptional physical strength necessary to find him underwater, swim him back to the surface, and then carry him back to safety, all within the span of three quarters of an hour.

EADARA: I suppose so. Yes.

JONES: No further questions, Your Honor.

 

·

 

Eve Gabler @E_Gablr  
I'll take one hot lawyer for twenty, Your Honor @MicJONES #damnson #cartergenes #jbbtrial

 

·

 

KRILL: State your name and occupation for the record.

WILSON: Samuel Wilson. Formerly of the 58th Pararescue, I now work for the VA — Veterans Affairs — as a therapist.

JONES: That is to say, you’re not affiliated with SHIELD.

WILSON: That’s right.

JONES: Could you tell the court how you first became involved in the Hydra affair?

WILSON: Steve and I, we’re what you might call running buddies? If you can call anyone who laps you five times in one mile a buddy. Now that’s just showing off.

_[laughter]_

WILSON: Steve and Nat — Natasha Romanov — came to me after the events of Camp Lehigh. Said that SHIELD was compromised, and there wasn’t anyone else they could trust. It probably helped that I _wasn’t_ SHIELD.

JONES: And you agreed to help them.

WILSON: Well...yeah. I don’t know if you noticed, but Steve there, he’s Captain America.

_[laughter]_

WILSON: As far as I was concerned, he was the good guy. I wanted to help.

JONES: How did you meet the Winter Soldier?

WILSON: I was supposed to be driving Steve, Nat, and Sitwell — a Hydra agent we’d kind of kidnapped — to the Triskelion to stop the helicarriers from launching. But we ended up being attacked by the Winter Soldier before we got there. This was on Southeast Freeway.

JONES: What was your first impression of him?

WILSON: Well, we were on a highway and he’d just yanked my steering wheel through the windshield, so... I thought he was crazy. No offense, Barnes.

_[Barnes looks faintly amused.]_

JONES: Did you share that opinion with anyone?

WILSON: Yep. Told my man Steve here that maybe the Winter Soldier wasn’t a person you could save. This was before all the action went down at the Triskelion.

JONES: And did you ever find reason to change that opinion regarding Sergeant Barnes?

WILSON: Listen, I was afraid that Steve would kill himself trying to reach out to the Winter Soldier. By the end I was certain that had happened, and frankly kicking myself for not getting through that thick head. But there he was on the riverbank — beat up to hell, but alive. And there were footprints on the bank next to him. I’d never been so glad to be wrong.

JONES: Knowing what you do now about the Winter Soldier’s circumstance, would you share with the court your professional opinion of Sergeant Barnes?

WILSON: Honestly? I’m astounded by the strength it must’ve taken Barnes to break through his programming like that. I would’ve said it was impossible. I still don’t understand how he did it, other than he and Steve are both stubborn bastards.

_[laughter]_

WILSON: But I’ll say this: it took real strength of character to do what he did. Barnes isn’t a killer, not even close. He’s a good man who’s been used for too long.

JONES: Thank you, Mr. Wilson.

 

·

 

Veteran Affairs @DeptVetAffairs  
Sam Wilson will talk POWs and survivor's guilt 06/07/2015: bit.ly/A9BiO

 

·

 

JONES: Ms. Romanov, Southeast Freeway was not the first time you’d encountered the figure known as the Winter Soldier, correct?

ROMANOV: Yes.

_[murmurs]_

JONES: Could you tell the court about that first time, please.

ROMANOV: At first the Winter Soldier was just a legend, a story you tell little kids at night. Well. Little spy kids. Be good, or the sniper with the metal arm’s gonna come get you.

_[uneasy laughter]_

ROMANOV: Five years ago, there was a — a SHIELD engineer in Iran. His cover had been compromised, and he needed an extraction. I was assigned to escort him out.

_[long pause. Barnes is shifting uneasily.]_

ROMANOV: The mission was difficult from the start. We had a, a close call near the Turkish border, and I turned us into Azerbaijan instead. It wasn’t my favored route, and I could tell we hadn’t lost our tail. We were ahead of him all the way into Ukraine. Then near Odessa, he shot out my tires, and we went over a cliff.

JONES: You keep saying “he”. Is this —

ROMANOV: It would have been a difficult shot under normal circumstances. The wind was up and visibility was low. It — it was the mark of a very skilled sniper. My first priority was the engineer. He was bleeding from the crash but alive. I ended up covering him with my body, trying to protect his vitals. _[a small laugh]_ The sniper shot him straight through me. Kill shot.

_[murmurs]_

ROMANOV: The sun was going down. I remember seeing the light glint all the way off the sniper’s left side. That’s when I knew.

JONES: Thank you, Ms. Romanov. Now, you said that the Winter Soldier killed the engineer with one shot. Could he, perhaps, have killed both of you in this way?

ROMANOV: Undoubtedly.

JONES: Did the Winter Soldier know that you were alive?

ROMANOV: I believe so. I don’t think he could have missed a thing like that.

JONES: Yet he left you to live.

ROMANOV: Yes.

JONES: Ms. Romanov, have you ever been in a situation where your mind was not under your own control?

ROMANOV [tightly]: Yes.

JONES: You’re famous, in fact, for breaking out from under that control and defecting to SHIELD.

ROMANOV: Yes.

JONES: If I may ask, how difficult was that?

ROMANOV: Immense. It was — imagine you’re underwater, and it’s dark, and cold. You’re out of air, but you have to keep swimming. With every stroke you imagine you’re going to break into air, but you don’t. All you feel is nothing. I — _[wetly]_ I nearly thought I couldn’t do it, and I’d been trained all my life to push past my body’s limits.

JONES [gently]: Thank you.

COYLE: Objection, what is the relevance of this testimony?

JONES: I’m just getting to that.

KRILL: Then please, get to it quickly.

JONES: Ms. Romanov, knowing what you know about Hydra, would you say it would have been easier for the Winter Soldier to leave you alive, or kill you both?

ROMANOV: It would have been much easier to kill us both. Cleaner.

JONES: And how difficult do you imagine it would be, instead of killing one’s target, to dive into a river the size of the Potomac, drag that target onto shore, make sure that the target is breathing, and then _leave_?

ROMANOV: It’s extraordinary. I’m not sure I could have done it.

JONES: Thank you very much, Ms. Romanov. No further questions.

 

·

 

From: Clint [11:45]  
damn

From: Clint [11:46]  
proud of you, kid

From: Sam [11:46]  
You and me have a date with a bottle of Jack.

To: Sam [11:49]  
Yes please

From: Sam [11:52]  
I’m taking Steve for burgers or he’ll fall apart before he gets on the stand

From: Sam [11:52]  
You coming?

To: Sam [11:55]  
Got something to do first.

 

·

 

short stripes @flightrisk  
should we actually believe black widow’s testimony

too good for you @carterings  
jbb saved cap’s life oh my god #jbbtrial #acquithim

commando #8 @ahowling  
@carterings cap was ready to die for him jfc

shot first @flyingsolo  
63 kills and he’s admitted to them, come on #WSTrial #noacquittal

 

·

 

KRILL: State your name and occupation for the record.

BELL: Rebecca Sophia Bell. I'm retired.

JONES: You are the sister of the accused.

BELL: That's right.

JONES: When is the last time you have seen Sergeant Barnes? In the flesh, that is?

BELL [intake of breath]: That was — that was in 1943, before he left for the front. He wasn't living at home anymore, not then. He'd moved out years before, he only came by on Sundays, after mass. But he came to see Mother, and to kiss us before he had to, he had to leave.

JONES: How old were you at the time?

BELL: Seventeen.

JONES: Which would now make you —

BELL: Eighty-eight.

JONES: Quite. Your brother was twenty-six when he shipped out to participate in the Italian campaign —

BELL: Twenty-five. His birthday was in October. _[choked]_ Is in October.

_[James Barnes looks distinctly stricken.]_

JONES: Do you recognize the man sitting in the dock?

BELL: Yes. I, yes. That's James. My brother.

JONES: Thank you. You told us just now that your brother was no longer living at home with his mother and sisters in 1943. Where was he living?

BELL: He lived nearer the docks. Rent was cheaper there, and it was close to the newspapers place Steve worked sometimes —

JONES: That would be Steve Rogers, who is sitting in the audience right now.

BELL: Yes. He'd lost his mother a few years before that, you know, and Bucky, Bucky wanted to make sure he could pay for his medicines, he was so sickly then —

_[scattered laughter]_

BELL: — so he said they should split rent, save up money. Steve wasn't too hot at first. Bucky came home ranting about it — said he wasn't being charitable, said he was being selfish, askin’ him like this. Said Steve was a stubborn ass.

_[laughter]_

JONES [amused]: Did you agree with that assessment?

BELL: Sure. Sure I did.

JONES: What year was this?

BELL: That was 1937. Was months before Steve said yes.

JONES: So between 1937 and 1943 James Barnes and Steve Rogers were living together.

BELL: Off and on. They got split up a couple times because they couldn't make the rent, or because landlords disapproved of Steve comin' home with a busted face. But for the most part they bunked together whenever they could.

COYLE: Objection! This is a narrative — Your Honor, is there a point to this?

JONES: Your Honor, there are two. One of the prosecution's salient points of argument was to contend that Sergeant Barnes' loyalty to Steve Rogers can and should be put into question. Surely someone who has known them since childhood can offer a valuable testimony as to the truth of that assessment. Furthermore, it contributes to the establishing of James Barnes' character. Sergeant Barnes has been repeatedly referred to as a weapon and a device throughout the proceedings of this trial — rather than as a man who once has had a life, a history, and a family. I believe it is _profoundly_ necessary, at this juncture, to remind the jury that they are not looking on a commodity but on a human being.

COYLE: This is ridiculous. No one can deny the man is flesh and blood —

KRILL: Well, _I_ 'll allow it. But tread carefully, sir.

JONES: Thank you, Your Honor. Ms. Bell, please take a look at this letter —

_[Exhibit #56.]_

JONES: Do you recognize the handwriting on that letter?

BELL: Yes, that's James's hand.

JONES: Would you very much mind reading us a few lines, starting from the top?

BELL: Um. Sure. _Dear Steve, Some movement at last. Whole regiment's moving upcountry in two days, town name of — that’s redacted. Better than squatting down here in the trenches waiting for the jerries to blow us up, I'll say. The boys not much better — restless and scared, and it takes three men to hold P. down when he's screaming with night terrors. At least I got no nightmares anymore & sleep like a baby. Wish I could say wish you were here, but I don't. I'm real glad you're at home. Only I'm hoping you haven't made off with a girl and gone to raise chickens in New Mexico, because Ma's last letter says they haven't seen you in a while —_

JONES: Thank you. Of course, this letter has been entered into evidence and can be reviewed in its totality by the jury, if they so wish … And this one — the handwriting has been attested to be the same — Ms. Bell, who is it addressed to?

_[Exhibit #57.]_

BELL: Me.

JONES: Do you remember when you received it?

BELL: Yes. Autumn '44.

JONES: Would you read it? It's only a quick note.

BELL: _Beck — just a few words to say I got yours — I would have waited, only it's dated March 5th & it's June now. Can't tell you much, only that we're safe and keeping dry … London's got craters like the moon. After this's done I'll take you over an make a trip of it. Steve says to tell you not to let the forewoman walk all over you and Vicky. Thinks he can win the war over here and still pick fights over there, the big lump. Take care of Ma & Vicky & Baby. Love — B._ There's a post-scriptum — _Forgot to say: the chocolates are amazing: THANKS!!_ 'Thanks' is capitalized.

JONES: Thank you _very_ much, Ms. Bell. Would you say that these letters reflect your brother's relationship with Steve Rogers as you knew it?

BELL: Sure. Always calling each other names, those two, but there wasn't a back-alley scrap Bucky wouldn't have fished Steve outta. He'd have given the kid bits of the moon for chewing-gum, if he could have.

JONES: Did you ever think that that loyalty was subject to condition?

BELL: Certainly not.

JONES: Were you ever given reason to think that your brother questioned, doubted, or went against Captain Rogers' explicit orders during the war?

BELL: Never.

JONES: Thank you. No further questions, Your Honor.

KRILL: You may proceed, Mr. Coyle.

COYLE: Thank you. Ms. Bell, while you and your brother were corresponding during the war, did he ever appear dissatisfied or unhappy with the work they were required to do?

BELL: I don’t think so.

COYLE: He never expressed any discomfort about any of his actions?

BELL: He wasn’t allowed to talk about much. Some parts of his letters were redacted.

COYLE: As far as he was allowed to talk, he never expressed any unease?

BELL: Sometimes it felt like he was downplaying how hard it got. Sounded more cheerful than he was, to boost us up. He often talked about comin’ home, about what we’d do after.

COYLE: He was certain that he would get to come home, then?

BELL: I think he wanted _us_ to be sure he’d come home.

COYLE: Quite. Thank you.

 

·

 

Us Weekly @usweekly  
FEATURED: After Becca Barnes’s testimony, Steve Rogers slips out to embrace his old friend usm.ag/3f0oSp __

·

 

KRILL: Please state your full name and occupation for the record.

MORITA: James Morita. Drinking.

_[laughter]_

COYLE: Mr. Morita, you are one of the members of the strike team that Mr. Rogers assembled during the war — the so-called Howling Commandos, are you not?

MORITA: Sure am.

COYLE: And did you have a specialized role within the commandos?

MORITA: We all did a little bit of everything — but yeah, I was the medic.

COYLE: I see. Now, I recall that you were also one of those held in Azzano, the site of Captain Rogers’s first rescue.

MORITA: Don’t see why you need me around, then, you seem to recall things just fine.

_[laughter]_

COYLE: Mr. Morita, did you examine the Winter Soldier for injuries after the rescue?

MORITA: As _I_ recall, there wasn’t anybody called the Winter Soldier then — just Barnes.

KRILL: Please answer the question, Mr. Morita.

MORITA: There were a lot of people injured. Barnes seemed to be handling himself all right, so I didn’t get to him ‘til later, after we’d all got some shut-eye.

COYLE: And what kind of injuries did you find?

MORITA [hesitating]: I mostly looked for broken bones — bleeding — things I could handle in the field, you know. Barnes told me that he was mostly dead tired. That they’d injected him with stuff that burned like fire. Well, I couldn’t do anything about that, so I left him alone.

COYLE: So what you’re telling me, Mr. Morita, is that you could find no medical evidence that Sergeant Barnes had been tortured at Azzano.

MORITA: Now hang on —

COYLE: Your own words, Mr. Morita. Sergeant Barnes had been held in the lab for sixteen days, an experience that eleven others did not survive, and all you could find was that he was “dead tired”? Does this seem likely?

MORITA [heatedly]: If you’re callin’ Barnes a liar, why don’t you just —

COYLE [raising his voice]: Isn’t it far more likely that Sergeant Barnes had struck some kind of deal, that he was not tortured at all, and had already begun working as an agent of Hydra—

JONES [furiously]: Objection! Speculation!

ROGERS [muffled]: — ’ve got no right —

KRILL: Order! Mr. Coyle, please.

MORITA: Barnes was one of the best men I’d ever fought with — after Azzano, we were _all_ tired, and Barnes still managed to stay on his feet just to have Rogers’s back — and if you have a problem with that, you and me, we’re going to have words.

COYLE: Thank you. No more questions.

 

·

 

The New York Times @nytimes  
Seventy Years Later: S. Rogers, J. Morita and J. Falsworth Reunited #WStrial nyti.ms/2mdr6lP

 

·

 

CNN Breaking News @CNNbrk  
FEATURED: Steve Rogers to take the stand in #WStrial

 

·

 

JONES: Captain Rogers, when did you become aware that Sergeant Barnes was still alive?

ROGERS: On Southeast Freeway. I was en route for the Triskelion with Natasha and Sam —

JONES: Sam Wilson and Natasha Romanov.

ROGERS: Yes. We were — attacked.

JONES: Can you describe the attack?

ROGERS: Someone landed on top of the car and bullet shots came through the roof. When Sam braked, the attacker was thrown off ahead of us.

JONES: Can you describe the attacker?

ROGERS: He had a black uniform and a mouthpiece on. Metal arm. He was wearing some pretty heavy gear.

JONES: Thank you. Please proceed.

ROGERS: There were reinforcements coming to him, and by the time we made it out of the car we were under fire. I deflected a shot, and was thrown off the bridge into a civilian bus. When they started shooting into the crowd, Natasha tried to distract the Winter Soldier away from the scene and was shot in the shoulder. I intervened; eventually his mask came off.

JONES: Did you recognize him then?

ROGERS [softly]: Of course. Of course I did.

JONES: You never thought it could be anyone else? A descendant, a look-alike?

ROGERS: Never. It was Bucky's voice, his eyes. I'd have recognized him anywhere. If it was a hundred years in the future I'd have recognized him.

JONES: Did he look any different from how you remembered him?

ROGERS: He was, he _is_ broader. Heavier. Bucky during the war was all bones, really. They — the 107th — they'd been starved during their imprisonment. He put some muscle back on, after, but it wasn't anything like this.

JONES: You said his voice was the same. Did he talk to you?

ROGERS: I talked to him. I said his name. He _[clears throat]_ he asked who that was.

JONES: Did he appear to speak in good faith? Did he seem confused about being called by that name, or about being called by any sort of name at all?

ROGERS: He looked like I'd said something he didn't even know could exist. He looked straight at me and had no idea who I was.

COYLE: I must object, Your Honor — the witness could not possibly read the accused's thoughts, and cannot make pronouncements as to what he can or cannot remember.

KRILL: Objection sustained. Take care not to state your personal opinions as fact, Captain.

_[Captain Steven Rogers sets his jaw, but nods.]_

JONES: Did Sergeant Barnes attempt to attack you again?

ROGERS: Yes—not right away. He hesitated.

JONES: You're certain about that?

ROGERS: Dead sure. There was a ten-second lapse where he — could have shot me, and — didn't.

JONES: You came in contact with Sergeant Barnes again the next day, didn't you?

ROGERS: I did.

JONES: Tell us what happened then. In your own words.

ROGERS: He was on the last helicarrier I was taking down. We fought, again. We were pretty evenly matched. I was — I had to dislocate his shoulder, the right one, to stop the fight long enough so I could put the helicarrier out of commission. When it started to fall apart, he was trapped under a steel rafter, and I helped him get out from under it.

JONES: Did Sergeant Barnes, at any point during this fight, appear to recognize you or to deviate from his given orders?

ROGERS: When he was trapped under that rafter he looked terrified. He looked at me like he thought I was about to execute him. I tried to tell him who he was, who he’d been, and he. He denied it. Then he stopped. Stopped fighting me, stopped talking, just looked at me and stopped. _[pause. softly]_ Then the carrier caved in, and I fell.

JONES: Was there any apparent reason why he stopped fighting?

ROGERS: I said something to him. Something he told me, in, in 1936, after my mother died. To remind me that I wasn't alone, that I didn't have to — _[indrawn breath]_ I didn't have to live on my own. Something real. Felt like the only real thing left at the time.

JONES: Captain, you were found on the shore of the Potomac almost an hour after the carriers self-destructed. You've already said on record that you fell into the river, and testimonies that came before yours have helped us determine that the person who saved you must have both seen you fall and been extraordinarily strong. Do you believe Sergeant Barnes broke through his conditioning and rescued you from the water?

ROGERS: I lost consciousness pretty quickly. I was all banged up to hell. I remember being yanked up, though — that sharp, upward motion. I thought I was going to die, and then I wasn't. I don't think anyone but Bucky could have gotten me out.

JONES: Thank you very much, Captain. Your witness, sir.

COYLE: Mr. Rogers, would you say you're impartial where the Winter Soldier is concerned?

_[pause]_

COYLE: Mr. Rogers.

ROGERS: I'm sorry. That's not his name.

COYLE [exasperatedly]: Would you say you're impartial where Sergeant James Barnes is concerned?

ROGERS: No. I can't be impartial. He's my best friend. I've lived with him and I've grown up with him and I've gone to war with him. I saw him die. I thought he was dead. I can't — being unbiased would make me inhuman.

COYLE: In fact you are quite biased. In his testimony earlier today, Mr Wilson said, I quote: "I was afraid that Steve would kill himself trying to reach out to the Winter Soldier. By the end I was certain that had happened, and frankly kicking myself for not getting through that thick head." Why would Mr Wilson — a certified therapist, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sure I don't need to remind you — feel that your feelings for the Winter Soldier would overcome your self-preservation instincts, Captain? Did he perhaps believe that you would rather die than kill your best friend?

_[pause. Captain Rogers sets his jaw.]_

COYLE: Did you try to commit suicide on that helicarrier, Captain? At the hands of the man you claim as your closest friend, no less?

JONES: Objection—this is leading the witness, your Honor.

KRILL: Sustained. Please do not paint your questions in such a calculated fashion, Mr. Coyle.

COYLE: My apologies. Captain Rogers. Maria Hill's testimony has shown that you told her to open fire while you were on board the helicarrier. The extent of your injuries once you were brought into the hospital was immense. Did you, while engaging with the Winter Soldier, at any point decide to stop fighting?

ROGERS [strained]: Yes.

_[Barnes closes his eyes.]_

COYLE: Why is that?

ROGERS: I. I knew one of us would have to walk away, and I couldn't stand the thought of living in a world where I — where I couldn't save Bucky. Not again. Not ever again.

COYLE: I see. _[pause]_ What was the nature of your feelings for Sergeant Barnes at the time?

ROGERS: I'm sorry?

COYLE: Yes.

ROGERS: I — he's my best friend.

JONES: Objection. We know this. What’s the relevance?

KRILL: Is there a point to this, Mr. Coyle?

COYLE: I'm coming to that. Captain Rogers, in 1943, you mounted a one-man suicide mission into enemy territory, at night, knowing full well the risks of walking into enemy territory with as little training as you had received. You also knew that in doing so you were endangering the very body of Project Rebirth, of which you had been the only subject. Is that correct?

ROGERS [very pale]: Yes.

COYLE: This was an enormous risk. It is now a well-documented fact that Sergeant Barnes was among the men you liberated that night. Several of those who were present have since stated that you were so committed to finding your friend as to leave them to make their way out on their own. You went further in to look for him. Is _that_ correct?

ROGERS: It's correct.

COYLE: You took that risk then. In fact you kept taking it for the following eighteen months. Sergeant Barnes was a Howling Commando strike agent under your direct command, and after his death it was not two days before you put your plane down in the Arctic Ocean. I’ll ask again, Captain Rogers: what was the nature of your relationship with Sergeant Barnes?

_[long silence; whispers]_

ROGERS: I — _[softly]_ I loved him. _[clears throat]_ I love him.

_[commotion; indistinguishable]_

BARNES: Steve —

KRILL: Silence, please. Captain Rogers, you do remember that you have sworn to say the truth, the whole —

ROGERS: Yes. _[steadily]_ I know.

BARNES: Steve.

KRILL: Mr. Barnes, _please_ , be seated.

 

·

 

too good for you @carterings  
DID CAP JUST COME OUT #JBBTRIAL

boy from brooklyn @rogerthat  
@carterings “I loved him. I love him” oh my godddddd

short stripes @flightrisk  
so many years #jbbtrial

shot first @flyingsolo  
Now we know why Rogers has been so desperate to defend WS #WSTrial

 

·

 

COYLE: Captain Rogers, how long did your affair with Sergeant Barnes last?

ROGERS: I'm sorry?

COYLE: You said —

ROGERS: I said that I loved him. He didn't know. I never told him.

COYLE: I'll rephrase. You were not having an affair with Sergeant Barnes?

ROGERS: No. As far as he was concerned, we were best friends and nothing more.

_[Barnes laughs.]_

COYLE: Did you ever make an inappropriate comment to Sergeant Barnes regarding your feelings for him?

ROGERS: No, I —

COYLE: Did you ever make a pass at him, now that you were much stronger than he was? Now that he was much more vulnerable than he ever had been before?

ROGERS: No!

COYLE: Did you ever commit any act or said anything that might be construed as taking advantage of a subordinate officer —

ROGERS: _Never._

JONES: Your Honor, I object — the prosecution is shifting goalposts. We are looking at Sergeant Barnes' actions for the past sixty-odd years to determine whether they were committed with intent or whether he was coerced into committing them. Captain Rogers is not on trial for something he didn't do seventy years ago.

COYLE: Your Honor, I am only trying to assess whether Captain Rogers might be compelled to defend Sergeant Barnes by feelings other than pure friendship.

JONES: I'm sorry, I don't see how romantic attachment would make Captain Rogers any less or any more biased in Sergeant Barnes' favor than feelings of deep friendship and brotherhood.

COYLE: Feelings, perhaps, such as guilt for taking physical or emotional advantage of a team agent who stood directly under his orders — which might in turn have caused Sergeant Barnes to change si —

JONES: Hang on — Your Honor, regardless of the frankly abhorrent implications in this line of questioning, Mr. Coyle is essentially accusing Captain Rogers of lying on the stand. Captain Rogers has already answered the question. This is just antagonizing the witness for the sole purpose of creating an impression on the jury —

KRILL: I'll sustain the objection. Mr. Coyle, whatever your point was, you've made it. Please move on.

COYLE: Very well. Captain Rogers, do you not think that your romantic attraction towards Sergeant Barnes might perhaps be blinding you to the severity of his actions?

ROGERS: I don't think that, no.

COYLE: Do you not think there's any credence to the old saying that love is sometimes blind?

ROGERS: I'm sorry, Your Honor, I didn't know the prosecution intended to win the day by reciting trite platitudes. If I had I'd ha'brought my encyclopedia.

_[scattered laughter. Barnes is leaning forward in his seat, smiling, his eyes set on Rogers.]_

COYLE: Unless we have been drastically misinformed as to the changes the Erskine serum wrought on your body, Captain, you do not actually have the power to read minds or divine motivations. Taking that into account, can you be wholly, absolutely sure that Sergeant Barnes could not voluntarily have committed any of the hits attributed to him? I'm not asking for your gut feeling. I'm talking hard, factual, empirical evidence.

ROGERS [tightly]: Seeing as I was sleeping in a frozen airplane in the Arctic at the time, I can't give you that empirical evidence, no.

COYLE [tapping a folder against the witness box]: Hmm. Captain Rogers, is your, your, your affection for Sergeant Barnes unconditional? Would you love him if he had committed any one of those murders with full knowledge of his actions?

ROGERS: I — of course I would. Every time.

COYLE: Captain, let me make myself very clear. You come in this courtroom and testify on the stand because you want to defend Sergeant Barnes against the big bad wolf of the American legal system. Are your decision to testify for the defense and your attraction to him separated objects, or do you defend him because you harbor feelings for him?

JONES: Your Honor, I object to this line of questioning.

KRILL: On what grounds?

JONES: The prosecuting attorney is acting argumentative, and does not question the witness in good faith.

_[pause]_

KRILL: Overruled. Answer the question, Captain Rogers.

ROGERS: If it was a stranger on that bench I'd be standing right here. Sir.

COYLE: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I must ask you to consider whether we can truly trust the testimony of a man who says that he loves a self-professed killer unconditionally — loves, perhaps, the murderer of one of our greatest presidents, whose memory we cherish deeply. What kind of a man — what man who wears the colors of America on his breast, who proudly names himself after his country —

ROGERS: You know, that's one thing America could try out one of these days. Maybe America could do with a little more love and respect for other human beings than it's become accustomed to dolin’ ou—

COYLE: Captain _Rogers_ , can you honestly say you can look at the man sitting in the dock right now and see anything but a killer?

ROGERS [snarling]: _Yes_. He's one of the bravest men I know, he's the bravest — he's been experimented on for decades, the fact that he's standing there at all is a _miracle_ —

COYLE: The evidence on that front has, so far, been inconclusive —

ROGERS: Are you downplaying the torture and brainwashing that this country's oldest POW has withstood, sir?

COYLE: I'm asking the questions, Captain.

ROGERS: Are you?

COYLE: Your Honor, really —

KRILL: Captain Rogers, as commendable as your feelings may be, you are acting out of turn. Please confine yourself to answering the question.

ROGERS: With all due respect, Your Honor, since the beginning of this trial this man has done nothing but crucify Bucky Barnes for failing to withstand decades of gaslighting and torture. You could say that's his job. But I always thought the purpose of a court of law was to look for the truth, not to look for any means necessary to inculpate an innocent man through legal technicalities and half-lies. Bucky's been suffering degradation and dehumanization for seventy years — men like this man saw him as a stepping-stool for leverage, turned him into a living weapon, and I refuse to sit and let anyone here —

KRILL: Captain.

ROGERS: — make any sort of decision that’ll see him locked up for so much as another day. I only failed to rescue him once. That’s not gonna happen again.

KRILL: Are you threatening this court, Captain Rogers?

ROGERS: Your Honor, I'm telling the court to do the right thing.

 

·

 

The Associated Press @AP  
BREAKING: Cpt. Rogers on Sgt. Barnes: “I love him” apne.ws/7asA9UQ

Fox News @FoxNews  
#CaptainAmerica: Not the Hero We All Believed to be fxn.ws/3arYV5b

 

·

 

Worldwide Trends • Change

#GayOrBi  
  
---  
  
 

·

 

CNN Breaking News @CNNbrk  
FEATURED: Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson hugging it out outside courtroom after second day of testimonies: cnn.it/1uGk7KS

People Magazine @peoplemag  
The New Flame: Cap and Falcon caught in compromising embrace peoplem.ag/1b7dfjK

 

·

 

 **To** : srogers@gmail.com  
 **From** : hottieofthunder@gmail.com

Brave heart, my friend. 


	3. Chapter 3

too good for you @carterings  
OH GOD IT’S STARTING JBB’S TAKING THE STAND

shot first @flyingsolo  
WS being sworn in. What a joke #WSTrial

 

·

 

KRILL: Please state your name for the record.

BARNES: James — James Buchanan Barnes.

JONES: Mr. Barnes, I understand your memory hasn’t fully returned.

BARNES: Yes.

JONES: That’s all right. Could you tell the court what you remember about your captivity under Hydra?

BARNES: A lot of it’s in flashes. I remember the day they took me. I was in pretty bad shape — my arm was broken, bleeding out. They cut — they took my arm. I think I blacked out at that point. When I woke up, they’d given me another one.

_[Steve Rogers looks sick.]_

BARNES: I was pretty out of it, from the pain, and maybe they’d given me something, too. When I saw the arm, I panicked — I attacked one of the techs, tried to get free, but there were a lot of them and they strapped me down. Zola was there. He told me that I was to be the “new fist of Hydra”.

JONES: Go on.

BARNES: I mostly remember pain — not like breaking a bone or a bullet wound, but like every part of your body hurting all at once. It got so bad I couldn’t do anything but scream, and I did until I went hoarse, kept on screaming. Zola told me all I had to do was obey them, and the pain would stop.

JONES: How did you react?

BARNES: Told him to go stuff it.

_[uncertain laughter]_

BARNES: I don’t know how long that took. Might’ve been hours, might’ve been days. At one point I bit my tongue pretty bad, and they shoved something in my mouth. Couldn’t scream anymore. And then — then things get kinda fuzzy.

JONES [a little shaky]: Quite understandable. What else do you remember?

BARNES: The cold. Cryo used to — they hadn’t fully perfected the technology. Sometimes they didn’t get it right and I was in the cold for hours. Couldn’t do anything, just hope it’d stop, eventually.

JONES: Could you describe how a typical mission went?

BARNES: I don’t remember.

JONES: You don’t remember being ordered to kill?

BARNES: No.

JONES: Do you recall any of your kills?

BARNES: Some. There are flashes. I — blood. Screams.

JONES: Mr. Barnes, what would have been the consequence of your disobeying orders? Do you recall ever doing so?

BARNES [with some hesitation]: I don’t understand.

JONES: Were you aware, at any point during your missions, of the possibility of defying orders? That is, were you free to refuse them?

BARNES: What good would that be? You don’t make a gun that refuses to shoot.

JONES: Thank you very much, Mr. Barnes. Your witness. 

 

·

 

Roy Van Dale @RV_Dale  
Does anyone actually believe this? #WStrial #wakeuppeople

 

·

 

COYLE: Mr. Barnes, you’ve stated that you only recall some of your kills. Look at this photograph. Is this one of them?

_[Exhibit #12.]_

BARNES: I — no.

COYLE: We heard earlier from Ms. Naomie Finebaum, whose grandfather you shot in his bedroom, as he was sleeping. Do you remember him?

BARNES: No.

COYLE: A comfort, I’m sure, to his granddaughter. What about Anton Kairovski?

BARNES: _[pause]_ Yes.

JONES: Objection! What is the point of this exercise?

COYLE: Your Honor, the defense has repeatedly pointed to this man’s memory in an attempt to exonerate him of his crimes; I’m merely attempting to ascertain how far the gaps in his memories go.

KRILL: Well, there’s no need to go through the entire catalogue of evidence. Wrap it up, please.

COYLE: Very well. Do you remember killing Mr. Ronald Sinclair?

_[Exhibit #18.]_

COYLE: You strangled him with your bare hands. Or, well, I say bare...

_[uneasy laughter in audience]_

COYLE: Do you remember that?

BARNES: Yes.

COYLE: Do you remember killing his wife, Cecelia?

BARNES: Yes.

COYLE: Now, Mr. Sinclair was the contractor. He was the target. His wife was an architect. She had nothing to do with her husband's work, and yet you — your bare hands — you still killed her. Why did you kill her?

BARNES: It was in the mission parameters.

COYLE: I see. It was in the mission parameters to execute a completely innocent woman, who was asleep at the time, in a different room of the house.

BARNES: Yes. It —

COYLE: Yes?

BARNES: Collateral damage was a. A matter of fact, for Hydra.

COYLE [disgustedly]: Collateral damage. You —

JONES: I object, your Honor! This is a deliberately inflammatory —

KRILL: Objection sustained. Please refrain from making value judgements, Mr. Coyle.

COYLE: Let's move on. Mr Barnes, do you recall planning this assassination?

BARNES: No.

COYLE: You killed this man and his wife, yet you cannot remember planning to kill them?

BARNES: Well, y’see, I was unconscious at the time.

COYLE: Unconscious how?

BARNES: They kept me on ice, when I wasn’t — when they didn’t need me.

COYLE: Very convenient.

JONES: Objection! This has been well-documented, Mr. Coyle is free to consult multiple sources —

KRILL: Sustained. _[wryly]_ Mr. Coyle, refrain from actively doubting your witness. 

COYLE: How well do you remember these assassinations, Mr. Barnes? Do you recall your feelings at the time? _[pause]_ Were they agreeable feelings? What was your state of mind as you strangled them? Did you _enjoy_ —

JONES: Your Honor, I must pro— _[interrupted]_

_[commotion; indistinguishable]_

KRILL: Be quiet, please.

ROGERS [muffled]: — no right —

KRILL: Captain Rogers, if you don't go back to your seat and stop disrupting this testimony, I will have to have you escorted from the premises.

_[commotion]_

ROGERS: With all due respect, ma'am —

JONES: Your Honor, the prosecution's line of argument is both unfounded and _clearly_ aimed at antagonizing the —

ROGERS: — this is preposterous. Bucky's the bravest and kindest man I've —

KRILL: Captain Rogers, I really must ask —

ROGERS: He doesn't deserve this. This country owes him more than a trial for treason and empty threats —

BARNES: Shut your trap, Rogers.

KRILL [exasperatedly]: Mr. Barnes —

ROGERS: Bucky.

BARNES: Please sit down.

ROGERS: You deserve better than this, Buck.

BARNES: Stop snapping at bullies, bud. I'm fine.

COYLE: Let’s move on. Mr. Barnes, have you ever been to Dallas?

BARNES: I don’t know.

_[murmurs]_

COYLE: You do not remember ever being in Dallas, Texas?

BARNES: No.

COYLE: Yet we heard earlier from an analyst that this is indeed the case. That you had a mission in November of 1963 that required you to go to Dallas.

BARNES: I’d reckon he knows better than me, then.

COYLE: We’ve heard Ms. Romanov testify that you are an excellent shot. Does your proficiency depend on the weapon?

BARNES: Not much. They — Hydra trained me to be comfortable with many models.

COYLE: Would you be able to operate a 6.5 mm Carcano carbine?

BARNES: Yes.

COYLE: And, using that weapon, would you be able to shoot a moving target — say, the size of a human head — from a distance of 265 feet?

BARNES: I’d expect so.

COYLE: You’d expect — could you hit that same target three times in the space of six seconds?

BARNES: Sure.

COYLE [voice rising]: And isn’t it true, Mr. Barnes, that on November 22nd, 1963, you did just that, shooting President John F. Kennedy from the windows of the Texas Book Depository —

JONES: Objection! Leading!

KRILL: Sustained. Please rephrase, Mr. Coyle.

COYLE: Mr. Barnes, who was your target in Dallas?

BARNES: I — I don’t know.

COYLE: _[pause]_ I see.

_[whispers]_

COYLE: Mr. Barnes. According to earlier testimony, you were injected with the so-called supersoldier serum at Azzano, correct?

BARNES: Yes. Well. I didn’t know that’s what it was at the time.

COYLE: When did you become aware that your body had changed?

BARNES: They didn’t know if it worked at, at Azzano. If it had, they probably would never have let me go.

_[Steve Rogers makes a distressed noise.]_

BARNES: I guess it took me a while to notice. It’s — you don’t _complain_ about your bruises healin’ maybe a little bit faster, do you?

COYLE: But you knew by the time of your fall, in 1944?

BARNES: Yes.

COYLE: Mr. Barnes, why did you never tell Captain Rogers about these changes? As he was your commanding officer, wasn’t it necessary for you to report them? Didn’t you think this was relevant information that he would want to know?

BARNES: I —

COYLE: Furthermore, if Captain Rogers had known about your enhanced healing, he would have undoubtedly searched for your body after your fall. Did you wish to prevent this? Was it planned all along, that you would rendezvous with Hydra in this manner —

BARNES: _No._

COYLE: Then tell us: why the secrecy?

BARNES: I guess — I didn’t want to think about it. Because it would’ve meant admitting that something had changed, that — that the war had changed me, and I didn’t want it to. I wanted it to be like back home, when I was just followin’ Steve into fights, watchin’ his back. Telling Steve that I was different would have, have made the war real. I guess I was trying to put it off for just a bit longer.

COYLE: Hmm. _[pause]_ Mr. Barnes, can you remember the events at the Triskelion, as narrated by various witnesses?

BARNES: I — no. Not as — no.

COYLE: I see. So you do not remember killing Shaun Danforth, age 39, by kicking him into a burning jet —

BARNES: No.

COYLE: Or Janet Stobert, by tossing a grenade into the hold of an occupied airplane —

BARNES: No.

COYLE: Then please, what exactly do you remember?

BARNES: I. I remember Steve. I remember fighting him, I remember him telling me not to do this, that he knew me.

COYLE: Do you remember shooting Captain Rogers? Three times, I believe, once in his side, once in —

BARNES: Yes.

COYLE: Do you also remember beating Captain Rogers, hard enough to crack his left cheekbone as well as several ribs, shatter his eardrum, fracture his fingers —

BARNES [barking]: _Yes._

COYLE: Could you tell us about Captain Rogers’s fall from the helicarrier?

BARNES: He wouldn’t fight back. I was angry at him, because he wouldn’t fight. I beat him up pretty bad. Then I — _[confused]_ I remember seeing him falling. And then I was falling, too. _[Wryly.]_ Seems like falling’s something I just keep doing.

COYLE: Excuse me if I’m wrong — mere seconds before Captain Rogers’s fall, you’d been attempting to kill him.

BARNES: I — yes.

COYLE: Furthermore, during the course of your fight, Captain Rogers had dislocated your right shoulder. Is that correct?

BARNES: Yes.

COYLE: Is it also correct that you sustained considerable damage to your — the metal arm?

BARNES: Steve had banged it up some, yes.

COYLE [disbelievingly]: And yet, you’re expecting us to believe that upon Captain Rogers’s fall, you dove into the Potomac, with injuries sustained to not one but both of your arms, and still managed to drag out your would-be victim? This is a fairy tale, concocted by the defense in order to manufacture sympathy for the defendant —

JONES: Objection!

KRILL [nearly simultaneously]: Mr. Coyle —

BARNES: I don’t, I don’t expect you to believe it. I don’t know if I believe it. All I’ve got to say on that is, whoever did it, I’m real glad they saved Steve here. _[softly]_ They must’ve loved him a whole lot, to do that. 

COYLE: Mr. Barnes. As the Winter Soldier, you performed a number of acts that would be abhorrent to any reasonable man —

JONES: Objection!

KRILL: No, I think I’ll see where this goes. Overruled.

COYLE: — and yet, you never even tried to escape? To refuse orders?

BARNES [tense]: Not after — not after they — I couldn’t.

COYLE: I wonder, then, what was so different about the day in question that you were able to regain your own mind.

BARNES: Well, Steve was there, he was talking to me —

COYLE: Mr. Barnes, are you honestly telling this court that killing people — children — wasn’t enough for you, but that, that your name coming from this man’s mouth was? What kind of —

BARNES [helplessly]: I don’t _know_. I just — Steve’s been with me all my life, I’ve followed him into enough scraps to last ten lifetimes, he rescued me once before and it was like that then, too —

COYLE [dry]: Ah, yes, your friendship. We had occasion to hear yesterday Captain Rogers’s testimony regarding his feelings towards you. Did this come as a surprise?

BARNES: Yes.

COYLE: What was your reaction to his words? Were you in any way shocked, perhaps disturbed? Had the possibility ever occurred to you?

BARNES: It wasn’t, it wasn’t disturbing, no. Mostly I was surprised because you’d think I’d’ve known that, seeing as how I’ve been in love with him since ‘36.

_[commotion]_

KRILL: Order!

COYLE: Are we _seriously_ to believe —

ROGERS: Bucky —

BARNES: Yeah, you big lump. Of course I was.

ROGERS: Got you beat there, Buck. Remember — remember that time in ’32 when ma was in the ward and I was sick? You brought me one of those buns and told me stories all night. Sat on my feet and wouldn’t get up even though I kept tellin’ you I didn’t want you gettin’ sick, too. And that’s when I thought — I knew — yeah.

BARNES [quietly]: I remember.

KRILL: Gentlemen, please.

 

·

 

too good for you @carterings  
HE WAS TOTALLY NOT EXPECTING THAT ANSWER #JBBTRIAL

boy from brooklyn @rogerthat  
@carterings the prosecutor is an idiot, just look at their faces

commando #8 @ahowling  
/since 1936/ heLP ME

commando #8 @ahowling  
cap’s FACE when he heard

too good for you @carterings  
@ahowling when they just started talking to each otherrrr

 

·

 

COYLE: Mr. Barnes, have you ever seen this building before?

_[Exhibit #72.]_

BARNES: No.

COYLE: Are you certain? Not during one of your missions, perhaps?

BARNES: I don’t remember it. ‘Course, that don’t mean much, nowadays.

_[scattered laughter]_

COYLE: Correct. This is a picture of the intersection of 5th Street and Morris Avenue in Brooklyn.

_[Steve Rogers starts.]_

COYLE: Captain Rogers would be familiar with this address, because before the area was rebuilt, it contained a tenement building in which you two resided from 1937 to 1939.

BARNES: I — I didn’t, I don’t —

COYLE: Could you take a look at the following document?

_[Exhibit #73.]_

BARNES: It’s a mission report. Dated June 1974.

COYLE: Yes. Please read to the court the section highlighted, there.

BARNES [slowly]: _WS went rogue during routine mission in New York. Tracked him down to a studio on 5th and Morris. Did not respond to standard triggers, had to be subdued manually. Recommend wipe + care in deployment to this area in the future._

COYLE: Mr. Barnes, given this report, how can you still hold that your time under Hydra was entirely involuntary? It seems clear to me that you were indeed capable of resisting their methods —

JONES: Objection! This is _entirely_ speculative —

KRILL: Sustained.

COYLE: Maybe you’d just given up? Or did you, perhaps, _want_ —

JONES: _Objection!_

COYLE: — like a faithful dog returning to its master —

KRILL: _Mr. Coyle_. Control yourself.

BARNES [quietly]: I tried. I swear to it, I really did.

COYLE: No further questions.

 

·

 

Luisa E @LEscarra  
Judge called recess for lunch. Closing statements this afternoon #USvsJBB

shot first @flyingsolo  
Don’t forget: he went back to them. #WSTrial #noacquittal

 

·

 

From: Sam [17:24]  
Did you know

From: Sam [17:24]  
About them, I mean

To: Sam [17:25]  
I was starting to suspect

To: Sam [17:25]  
Just look at them

To: Sam [17:29]  
Why don’t I have someone looking at me like that

From: Sam [17:30]  
That’s cause you don’t look at me enough

From: Sam [17:38]  
Nat? 

From: Sam [17:38]  
Was that too forward

To: Sam [17:40]  
Do you want to grab dinner after 

From: Sam [17:41]  
Please :) 

From: Sam [17:42]  
If this trial ever ends

 

·

 

Us Weekly @usweekly  
In love for a century: Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes usm.ag/1p2qbHK

People Magazine @peoplemag  
Through Ice, War, and Time: Just Two Boys in Love peoplem.ag/Bu3it

Irena E @IEscarra  
Things getting pretty heated at Wendy's outside the courthouse #JBBtrial

 

·

 

COYLE: ...we are looking at a killer who has not even denied — who has _admitted_ to a staggering sixty-three murders, and is hiding who knows how many more in his patchwork of memory. He is a man who admits to lying to his rescuer — his best friend and later his superior officer — about Hydra’s experiments in Azzano. Isn’t it strange that he claims to be telling the truth now? Now, when this “Arnim Zola” is a non-entity — now, when no one is left to contradict his claims of innocence?

_[pause]_

The defense would have you believe that this man is a victim. And I say this: this man, for seventy years, worked for Hydra — murdered children — _shot President Kennedy_ , ladies and gentlemen — without once questioning his orders. His actions are not that of an innocent man; they are those of a man complicit, comfortable, even, in an organization that should be abhorrent to us all...

 

·

 

commando #8 @ahowling  
i don’t wanna hate this guy for doing his job but he’s making it really hard #jbbtrial

boy from brooklyn @rogerthat  
@ahowling would not be surprised to find out that he kicks puppies every morning

shot first @flyingsolo  
Great closing from the prosecution #WSTrial

 

·

 

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,

You have a very difficult decision to make now. The prosecution and the defense have made their arguments — we've laid out our cases quite clearly, I hope—and now we have nothing left to do, no other choice to make, but to entrust all twelve of you with the life of this one man. The final choice will be yours, and it will have to be unanimous.

The prosecution has — repeatedly — reminded you of the crimes attributed to the Winter Soldier, but we are not denying that the Winter Soldier has committed them. We are asserting that James Barnes was coerced into becoming the Winter Soldier, that he never formed the intent to murder, and that he should not be punished for the offenses of other and more dangerous men. Despite the prosecution's penetrating closing argument, I won't do you the insult of going over the evidence of the trauma Sergeant Barnes has suffered for seven decades—all over again. I will only ask this: if, indeed, the Winter Soldier was complicit in Hydra's activities, why come back at all? Why rescue Captain America from the depths of the Potomac? Why not disappear, set up shop far, far away? Why turn himself in voluntarily and submit to this trial?

Of course, it's easy to think that getting rid of the Winter Soldier means getting rid of the problem once and for all — getting rid of Hydra, that sneaking wriggling intruder in our midst. The Winter Soldier's the Big Bad Wolf, the bogeyman, the ghost in everyone's closet. He's the thing that scares us in the dark. And we're so busy being scared of what's in the dark that we don't even stop to wonder who turned off the lights.

I beg you to remember that the accused is not a piece of weaponry one can throw away because it stopped working. He's not a ghost. He's a living, breathing, feeling human being, who once fought with all his heart for his country, and who now sits here waiting for his country to decide what will happen to him. I beg you don't forget what you have seen here — the videos, the photos, the files, all recounting the torture and the conditioning that James Barnes has had to live through for seventy years.

The Winter Soldier is not on trial. This isn't the Winter Soldier trial. The Winter Soldier is a fallacy, an invention, a fairytale. If we were to put in the dock every single doctor, every single soldier, every single politician who contributed to the Winter Soldier program, maybe we would come close to convicting the Winter Soldier himself. No: the man who's on trial right now, right here, that man is Bucky Barnes.

We all know Bucky. We've seen him in all our history books, all our class reports, our romance novels, our cinema screens, our television shows. Some of us have grown up watching _Captain America and the Howling Commandos_ at breakfast every morning. Some of us watched it with our kids. Some of us even had Bucky Bears. We all know about Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter and the Commandos, and yet even that story we know so well sometimes turns out to be a little different from what we expected. Not quite finished yet. History, it seems, is never really dead. Sometimes it even comes back to life.

Bucky Barnes came back to life this week. Right here in front of our eyes. Don't let him be buried again.

This is not a decision that can be taken lightly. Take your time. Take the time to review every document in evidence, every report, every picture, every video. Make sure that yours is the only possible choice you can make within the circumstances. It'll be hard. It'll take courage and strength. But I have the greatest faith in all of you, and in your capacity — whatever your sentiments were when you entered this courtroom — to do the right thing.

Thank you.

 

·

 

Eve Gabler @E_Gablr  
#dropthe @MicJONES

 

·

 

KRILL: Mr Barnes, is there anything you would like to say to the jury before they retire to deliberate?

BARNES [shakes head; hesitates]: I, yes. I've done — even if Hydra took me and — twisted me — and took any choice I had in the doing of it, those were still my hands and my face and my, my, my brain doing those things. I don't know if I can atone for them, even if I want to. I want to. I can't say how much. _[shaky breath]_ But I was. I was killing people long before I was turned into the Winter Soldier. I killed people during the war, I killed people in the trenches, and I killed people for the SSR. I was killing people for the United States government a long time before I fell off that train in the Alps. Maybe — maybe part of me was made a weapon the second I set foot in that ol' enlistment center back in Brooklyn.

_[indistinguishable]_

BARNES: You know, they gave me a choice to go home, after Azzano. They said, You were tortured, you’ll get an honorable discharge, and no one'll think you're weak. I wanted to. God, I wanted to. But then this, this kid I grew up with, you might have heard of him — uh, he came up to me in a bar in London and said, I want to keep fighting, and I want you, I want you with me. And after that saying no wasn't really on the cards anymore.

ROGERS [muffled]: Buck, no —

BARNES: Shut up, Rogers, I'm having a moment. Thing is, I must've saved that kid's life about fifty times, during the war. Watched his back. Kept his six. I was tired all the time and sometimes I felt like my teeth’d rattle outta my skull, and it still kept me going, knowing that I was doing what I was doing because Steve needed me to do it, _physically_ needed me there. Kept me real. That's what I was good at really — what I've always been good at — makin' sure he got out of scrapes safe. That's all I'm good at, not shooting a rifle, not flipping a knife. Just watching his back. And I haven't been able to do that since 1944. They took that from me, too. _[pause]_ I won’t. Tell you what to think. God knows I’m not a good man. God knows I get the urge to lock me away an’ forget all about me. But we’re short-handed on good men — and me, I found one. I found that one kid who didn’t know how to run away from a fight, decades ago, the most stubborn kid in Brooklyn. Been following him ever since. Maybe I just wanna get the chance to follow him again.

 

·

 

short stripes @flightrisk  
i believe, i believe #acquithim

boy from brooklyn @rogerthat  
So Cap’s crying. #JBBTrial

 

·

 

boy from brooklyn @rogerthat  
Cap refusing to leave courtroom #JBBTrial

too good for you @carterings  
he’s just turned down a sandwich from falcon #jbbtrial

commando #8 @ahowling  
2hrs 40. any bets on how long it’ll take? #jbbtrial

too good for you @carterings  
@ahowling  anywhere between 3hrs and the rest of our lives

 

·

 

To: Nat [23:05]  
Five hours. How's the press outside?

From: Nat [23:06]  
Not letting up. They're putting historians on. How's Steve?

To: Nat [23:06]  
Still not eating. Says as long as Barnes can't, he won't

To: Nat [23:07]  
Barnes's not looking too hot either

To: Nat [23:09]  
Think he'll get out?

From: Nat [23:14]  
I don't know.

From: Nat [23:31]  
Coming back in. Need anything?

To: Nat [23:32]  
Those beef dumplings from the place across the street

To: Nat [23:32]  
? Please

From: Nat [23:45]  
I'll get you a coffee

To: Nat [23:45]  
:) :)

 

·

 

boy from brooklyn @rogerthat  
15 min since Cap & JBB have looked away from each other #JBBTrial

commando #8 @ahowling  
@rogerthat they’ve waited ninety fucking yrs

too good for you @carterings  
I THINK CAP JUST MOUTHED “I LOVE YOU” #JBBTRIAL

commando #8 @ahowling  
@carterings HE TOTALLY DID

boy from brooklyn @rogerthat  
@ahowling @carterings DID YOU SEE JBB’S FACE THOUGH

too good for you @carterings  
@rogerthat @ahowling it was heartbreaking

boy from brooklyn @rogerthat  
@carterings @ahowling God, guys, just let them hug

The New York Times @nytimes  
Breathless crowds await #WSTrial verdict in Times Square (Photo: Christopher Allen/NYT) nyti.ms/1pYr9ti

TIME.com @TIME  
POLL: Should Sgt. Barnes be acquitted? ti.me/1t3tFXM

 

·

 

Historian to discuss Captain America, Bucky Barnes, Queer Theory

By Jean Luther

**Q** : Ms. Krantz, you are one of the authors of the highly controversial _Captain America and Queer Theory: The Narratives of Heroism_ , which was first written in 1999 and was re-popularized in 2010 after the attack on New York. Your book was one of the first to suggest that the relationship between Captain America and his best friend Bucky Barnes may not have been as platonic as people thought. For that reason, it's been called, I quote, inappropriate, offensive, and even defamatory — and yet the revelations of the past two days have proven that you weren't actually very far off the mark! Do you feel vindicated by this confirmation of your theories?

**Krantz** : Well, vindicated isn't quite the right word. Historical interpretation is very often a guessing game, you know, and our interest while writing was only ever academic. We weren't writing a gossip rag. There is a very great difference between postulating on the potential sexuality of a historical figure as a means of reflecting a different perspective on a period that's too often reduced to its conservative, _acceptable_ components, and speculating on the sexual orientation and affairs of a living public figure who did not ask for that kind of scrutiny. Now, of course, historical figures being resurrected isn't something that happens every day — thank god, or we'd be out of a job! However, I will say that there is a certain amount of satisfaction in watching those of our colleagues who vehemently accused us of participating in an 'outlandish agenda' — you can see their words have stayed with me — well, they're trying frantically to talk themselves out of it now.

**Q** : What can you say about the counter-movement that has arisen for the past twenty-four hours or so — the petition online asking for Captain America to be stripped of his credentials and the #CanWeTrustHim campaign on twitter?

**Krantz** : It's unsurprising. It's also, unsurprisingly, absurd. Captain America is Captain America is Captain America, whatever his sexuality. What some people are going to have to wrap their heads around is that Steve Rogers was _always_ — well, we'll say queer, for now: 

it seems like the most appropriate blanket term. The man who accomplished the exploits related in every one of our history books was always in love with Bucky Barnes. And a lot of people are going to have difficulties accepting that, making the stereotypes fit each other. Hopefully, it will make some of them rethink the way they see, well, soldiers, LGBT people, and American wholesomeness in general. It might even make some people in academia stop painting historical figures as straight by default unless proven otherwise.

**Q** : Do you believe Bucky Barnes is innocent of the crimes attributed to him?

**Krantz** : Honestly, I do. Looking back at Barnes' military record from the 1943-1945 period, I find it difficult to believe that he could _willingly_ betray either his country or Steve Rogers — or Steve Rogers' memory, as the case may be. We have held Bucky Barnes as a symbol of unfailing loyalty for seventy years, and during those seven decades he was being held prisoner on our own soil and subjected to the worst sort of torture. He deserves our sympathy and our kindness. He most certainly doesn't deserve to be tried for high treason and terrorism. We can only hope that the jury will recognize that.

**Q** : Will you want to continue writing on the subject of Captain America's life, since all this new information has come out?

**Krantz** : As much as my scientific curiosity would urge me to, I wouldn't want to force any more of the limelight on either of these men. That being said, if one or both of them ever wants to give an interview and talk about their shared history, then I hope they know that Alison [Cooper, the co-author of _Captain America and Queer Theory: The Narratives of Heroism_ , ed.] and I, we'd — well, we'd be very willing to lend an ear!

READ MORE AT SMITHSONIANMAG.COM

 

·

 

Laura B. Castellano @LBCastellano  
PSA to everyone who's saying Cap should be kicked out of the Avengers Initiative: don't. #CanWeTrustHim

Laura B. Castellano @LBCastellano  
#CanWeTrustHim You're saying you can trust an ex-KGB assassin, an ex-weapons manufacturer, and a gigantic green dude with anger issues—

Laura B. Castellano @LBCastellano  
#CanWeTrustHim —to protect and defend you, but you can’t trust a queer (gay? bi? shut the fuck up) man, even if most of you—

Laura B. Castellano @LBCastellano  
#CanWeTrustHim —worshipped the ground he walked on yesterday. Cap didn't "lie" to any of us. He doesn't owe us shit. Think on that.

 

·

 

_"— well, Shauna, it's now a little past one in the morning here in Virginia and the jury has been out deliberating for seven hours. Of course it's a tough call to make, and by the time the prosecution and the defense made their closing statements I think it's safe to say that neither side had truly made a penetrating argument that would definitely tip the balance in their favor. The defense, as you know, has maintained that the torture and brainwashing that James Barnes has allegedly been the victim of for the past seventy years exonerates him from the charges against him, including high treason and a count of sixty-three known assassinations. The defense's argument that Barnes was coerced into committing these murders by the terrorist organization known as Hydra might in fact lead to a full acquittal if the jury agrees with it._

_"But the prosecution has been poking holes into this line of defense, and the trial's proceedings have been thrown into confusion by Steve Rogers' now infamous confession of love to Sergeant Barnes. We've been getting a lot of different feedback from people inside the courtroom, and our Twitter feed is exploding — at this point it's a little unclear whether public opinion will support Captain Rogers in this unexpected coming-out. Many have claimed that the similar confession made by the Winter Soldier during his testimony may be nothing more than a bid to gain public sympathy. Right this instant, the hashtags #acquithim and #noacquittal are both trending around the world — whatever decision is reached by the jury, it's sure to make a lot of people very unhappy — wait — Shauna, there seems to be some sort of movement back into the courtroom. Yes, I believe the jury's filing back in."_

 

·

 

KRILL: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a unanimous decision?

FOREMAN: We have, Your Honor.

KRILL: Please step forward, Madam Foreman.

FOREMAN: In the case of the United States of America versus James Buchanan Barnes, on the charge of high treason against the government of the United States, we find the defendant Not Guilty.

_[commotion]_

FOREMAN: On the charge of terrorism against the people of the United States, we find the defendant Not Guilty. On the charges of sixty-three different counts of murder, we find the defendant —

_[pause]_

FOREMAN: Not Guilty.

_[uproar]_

 

·

 

The Associated Press @AP  
BREAKING: Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes cleared of all charges apne.ws/1as8UOz

 

·

 

To: Nat [01:28]  
he’s out.

 

·

 

too good for you @carterings  
HE’S CLEARED HE’S FREE THANK GOD

commando #8 @ahowling  
jbb looks like he can’t believe it

boy from brooklyn @rogerthat  
holy shit Cap just jumped the gate

commando #8 @ahowling  
@rogerthat who’s gonna blame him they’ve been waiting so. long.

too good for you @carterings  
ARE THEY GONNA

commando #8 @ahowling  
@carterings THEY HAVEN’T EVEN UNCUFFED JBB YET

commando #8 @ahowling  
@carterings oh. my. god.

boy from brooklyn @rogerthat  
So. That happened. pic.twitter.com/1afs8WEx5p

 

·

 

Portrait of James Barnes as a Free Man

by Eileen Winters

Earlier today, James “Bucky” Barnes, also known as the Winter Soldier, was acquitted of all charges. The verdict, though surprising, was less unexpected than it had seemed at the beginning of the trial, during which it was revealed that Mr. Barnes had suffered deeply under the hands of Hydra and was forced to serve as a living weapon for several decades.

When Mr. Barnes exits the courthouse, he looks much better than he did during his testimony, which was marked with horrifying descriptions of torture and left everyone shaken. He has a smile on his face and eyes only for Captain Steve Rogers, his childhood best friend and a leading witness for the defense. The second day of trial saw a moving declaration of love from Mr. Rogers, to which Mr. Barnes replied in kind. Mr. Rogers is holding Mr. Barnes’s hand — the left one, which had been deemed a weapon and removed for the duration of the trial. Looking at the couple now, it’s hard to believe that the destruction wrought on Southeast Freeway and the Triskelion was the result of a desperate fight between them.

Both Mr. Barnes and Mr. Rogers decline to talk to the press — “He needs rest,” Mr. Rogers says firmly, wrapping an arm around Mr. Barnes’s shoulder as if to shield his partner. “A good meal and a chance to talk to family he hasn’t seen in seventy years.” When associate Natasha Romanov drives up, Mr. Rogers herds Mr. Barnes into the backseat, a hand at his nape.

Neither of them commented on the picture of them which has now gone viral. When, after the verdict, Mr. Rogers leaped the gate to tug Mr. Barnes down into a kiss, a member of the audience took a photograph of the moment and uploaded it to twitter. The original tweet was swiftly deleted, but copies of the picture continue to circulate and seem unlikely to disappear from the internet. Some people are already calling the picture “a disgrace” and demanding that indecency charges be levied, but others are far happier. 

“They’ve loved each other for so long, you can see it in their bodies,” said Stephanie Katz, visual arts student from the University of Virginia. “I think it’s good that we’ve grown as a country to allow them this moment.”

READ MORE AT NYTIMES.COM

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for all your feedback and support, guys. We loved writing this and we’re delighted to know that you’ve enjoyed reading it ♥
> 
> ETA: OKAY SO. For those of you who'd like a certain Twitter link to be real, we've been gifted by some incredible artists :')  
> \- [by nursethalia](http://www.miyadraws.com/post/98950016226/done-for-radialarch-and-nuitdenovembres-courtroom)  
> \- [by cptsmallass](http://cptsmallass.tumblr.com/post/98987630720/neither-of-them-commented-on-the-picture-of-them)

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